Today’s Drivel From The Guardian!
By Paul Homewood
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/08/are-we-killing-our-rivers
Today’s dose of drivel from the Guardian!
In a long and often serious piece about rivers and the water supply in Sussex, they discuss falling water levels in the aquifers, and the steadily rising demand for water caused by increasing population and development.
Unfortunately, they decide to put some of the blame on climate change.
The immediate cause of the early drying out at the source of the Ouse was simply that there was not enough water in the underground aquifer on which it feeds. But that turns out to be part of something bigger. In March 2013, the local branch of the Environment Agency reported that, depending on conditions, there are now years when they can extract water from the Ouse on no more than 94 days. For the rest of the year, abstractors can use water that has been stored during the wet months in the big reservoir at Ardingly, and they can pump up water through boreholes sunk into the underground aquifers. This in turn reduces the amount of water that bubbles up into the river and its tributaries. The Environment Agency has stopped issuing new abstraction licences for the river. Meanwhile, during the summer months, nearly half of what we like to describe as a river is, in fact, recycled waste water and sewage…..
Jim Smith was perfectly clear about the source of the problem, a horrible combination of two powerful forces. The first is climate change. “The seasons have definitely changed. In the summer months, there just isn’t enough water in the system. A lot of the downland streams are dry. Areas that used to be wetlands are getting progressively drier. A lot of the ditches are dry.”
Whether the streams are dry in summer or not, it has nothing to do with climate change, Jim. According to the official Met statistics for your part of the world, rainfall has actually been increasing during the last half century.
More significantly, as far as the aquifers are concerned, annual rainfall has also been increasing.
And for good measure, annual rainfall at the local station of Eastbourne shows no trend at all. That must be what they mean by climate change!
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/climate-historic/#?tab=climateHistoric
The real problem, of course, is the increasing demands from ever rising levels of population in the South East. And the biggest driver of this is immigration.
But heaven forbid that the Guardian should mention that!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Like the BBC, the Grauniad is always pleased to report an opinion by someone/anyone if it supports their agenda.
No mention by this environmentally concerned and alert journo (or his interviewee) of the big infestation of himalayan Balsam they’re standing right next to though!
And why exactly didn’t the journalist do what you have done Paul, check the facts.
Oh I know facts don’t matter when it has anything to do with their ideas about climate change. Nonsense reporting at the grauniad as usual.
I recently looked into why a local lake system to me was mysteriously losing water. I concluded the simple reason in part is because rainfall in this part of London has declined by 10% since the lake system was designed in the 18th century – caused mostly by the urban heat island effect. There’s obviously other variables to consider but this seems most plausible
Paul, that is yet another good post but it led me on to an interesting detail about the times when climate change did indeed have a very dramatic effect on the Sussex Ouse. According to the Wikipedia entry for that river, there are “raised beaches” above its banks which show that, during previous interglacials, the river was up to 40 metres or 131 feet above its present level. Not even Al Gore (or the Guardian) ever predicted that our current rate of global warming is likely to raise sea levels by quite that extent. (incidentally, I am pleased to see that my Peivate Eye coinage of ‘the Grauniad’ is still in use 53 years later! Although in those typo-ridden days it referred to the paper’s inability to spell correctly, it now more appropriately refers to its inability to think straight).
Now I’m not sure if ‘Peivate Eye’ was deliberate or freudian. Looking forward to your mighty column tomorrow.
I am not familiar with the land use (cover) of the area discussed. Thus, this comment may miss by a mile or maybe just a kilometer.
Settlement of an area changes the land use and land cover. Forests become fields and fields become roads, parking lots, and roof tops. Road side ditches and storm drains carry water away, stream flow peaks sooner and higher with respect to precipitation. Less water seeps into the ground to recharge the underground water and the base flow of streams.
I commented on another site earlier about this, but here it is also:
See: Geological Survey Circular 554
Figure 1. Hypothetical unit hydrographs relating
runoff to rainfall, with definitions of significant parameters.
Click to access report.pdf
by Luna B. Leopold
______
Note that the rainfall is usually shown as a bar chart while the flows are shown as a continuous line. I’ve seen “period of rainfall” shown as a continuous line but it seems less common. Folks use the phrase “storm hydrograph” so a search on that using “images” will work.
Off topic I know, but more drivel and an example of the propaganda being fed to children in the name of “science”.
I happened to encounter the current edition of “Horrible Science” on Citv entitled “Wasted World”, which was a curious mixture of inaccuracy and contradictions including “every summer the ice packs get smaller and smaller”,
Is the fact that this is “entertainment” for children an excuse for blatant inaccuracy?
I haven’t been able to find a complete episode on line but its still on telly, the tone of the programme can be gauged from the “ice song” here:
http://www.itv.com/citv/horrible-science/horrible-science-wasted-world-ice-song
Paul spoil good analysis by going all “Daily Mail” on us
“The real problem, of course, is the increasing demands from ever rising levels of population in the South East. And the biggest driver of this is immigration.”
– It maybe a bit too simplistic to say that water level damage is directly related to population. It could be bad management, or demand from non domestic customers like golf courses, industry, data centres etc.
It’s the alarmists who like modern Alf Garnetts go for simplistic explanations against complex realities, whereas we see the bigger picture.
typo ..Paul don’t spoil good analysis by