2007 UK floods not caused by climate change. Climate Faithful get it wrong yet again.

During last year's floods in the UK Meteogroup published an article that included:

Town hall chiefs warned the Government today to speed up spending on flood defences or face a possible repeat of this summer's deluges..."There is a clear need to improve flood defences around crucial infrastructure as a matter of urgency. The summer floods demonstrated how vulnerable we are to the loss of sub-stations and water supply, and we simply cannot wait another three years to start taking these vital precautions..."Councils are on the front line in the fight against climate change and are committed to helping keep the places where people live and work safe from flooding." Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne said: "This submission is further evidence that the Government has still not got to grips with the full impact of climate change.

Naturally, you can trust CNN to make sure that the real cause of the floods is identified. It must be true; the PM said it.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited Gloucester on Monday and promised to mobilize resources from across the country. He also announced increased funding for flood and coastal defenses across the country. "Like every advanced industrialized country, we are coming to terms with the issues surrounding climate change," he said. The prime minister described the flooding as unprecedented. He pledged $1.6 billion in flood relief.

Some of that money will come from a European Union solidarity fund. Climate change is to blame so there's money aplenty.

Britain stands to receive about 160 million euros ($231.2 million) from a European Union solidarity fund to help cover the multi-billion cost of the country's flooding in June and July...EU Regional Policy Commissioner Danuta Huebner announced the figure on Wednesday after talks with the British minister responsible for flood relief and local government, John Healey. Huebner said two other big applications were pending for storms in Germany and forest fires in Greece. "We are probably in Europe going to face more and more cases of climate change related national disasters, to which we have to be better prepared," she said.

The increasingly embarrassing science rag, Nature, published a peer-reviewed study that burning fossil fuel causes rain.

Global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions has triggered heavy downpours in the UK, a group of leading scientists has reported, in a study presenting the strongest case yet that rainfall has been altered by human behaviour. Scientists were unable to attribute the UK's floods over the past few weeks directly to climate change, as similar events have happened naturally in the past, but they have found a significant increase in rainfall in the regions north of 50 degrees of latitude, which includes the UK, Europe, Canada and Russia over the past century. Nathan Gillett, lecturer in climate at the University of East Anglia, and co-author of the study, said: "While our study shows a human influence on rainfall at the global scale, the role of human influence in the recent UK flooding remains uncertain." More research was being carried out to discover how the British climate was affected by global warming.

Well, that seems nice and balanced...the article finishes...

The changes to rainfall patterns resulting from emissions were not detected in previous scientific studies because these tended to rely on global averages for rainfall. But increases in rainfall in some regions over the past century have been balanced out by less rainfall in others, so the averages have not told the whole story. This week's study looked in detail at regional precipitation patterns. The study's findings were in line with those envisaged in the computer models that scientists use to predict climate change.

To be clear - the rainfall in the UK is in line with computer model predictions (which is drivel but I'll spend time in another post on the issue of models and precipitation).

Anyway, you get the gist. Climate Change (a euphemism for capitalism, especially of the American kind) was the cause of the freak UK floods.

All of these people might might therefore be a bit surprised at a the report into the floods released yesterday.

The UK's summer floods of 2007 were a freak event unrelated to global climate change, according to a report from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH).

The key cause was that extended rains early in summer soaked soils that would normally have been dry at that time.

When heavy storms came later, water could not soak away into the ground.

The report said data does not support the notion that UK summer rainfall is increasing or rivers are showing faster flow rates than in previous years.

That said, 2007 did break a number of records. In particular, rainfall in June and July was about 20% higher than ever seen before in records than go back to 1879.

In summary:

• Every single commentator who ascribed the UK floods to global warming is officially a goose.
• The models predict increased rainfall but it's then shown that the UK floods were not the effect of climate change so the models are shown, yet again, to be wrong.
• Insurance companies are putting up premiums due to increased risk of damage caused by a non-existent problem. They must be laughing so hard they need humour-damage insurance.
• Local councils are seeking to stick their snouts further into the public trough to prepare for increased disasters due to climate change.

Why do all of the answers to climate change involve socialist policies? The paradox is that socialism has an appalling environmental record, which is exactly what you'd expect from such an impractical political system.

Regardless of the truth the Climate Faithful will keep on keeping on like the Duracell Bunny about the impact of humans on climate in stark contradiction to the facts.

No wonder they're called Alarmists.

(Nothing Follows)