:00:26. > :00:31.This is the River Pang and just six miles from here it joins the Thames.
:00:31. > :00:34.And a few days' time, some of this water will be filling the vast
:00:34. > :00:38.reservoirs that supply London. There is plenty of it and this is
:00:38. > :00:45.how it should look when all is well but a few months ago, things were
:00:45. > :00:49.very different. This was the River Pang last April. It was completely
:00:49. > :00:53.dry from here at Bucklebury to its source. It was the same story
:00:53. > :01:03.across the South of England. Reservoirs were shrinking after two
:01:03. > :01:03.
:01:03. > :01:13.years of drought. Then the skies opened. We had the wettest summer
:01:13. > :01:19.for 200 years. The Queen's jubilee celebrations were a washout. The
:01:19. > :01:24.Isle of Wight music festival was a mudbath. Some towns were left awash
:01:24. > :01:28.by flash floods. It seems to have been raining ever since. What on
:01:29. > :01:33.earth is happening to our weather? We've been told global warming can
:01:33. > :01:39.have a huge impact on the way we live our lives but is it happening
:01:39. > :01:48.already? Was 2012 a one-off? Should we expect more frequent floods and
:01:48. > :01:52.droughts in the future? In this programme, I will be finding out
:01:52. > :01:57.how the extreme weather has had a dreadful impact on our wildlife.
:01:57. > :02:01.They have got to be a certain weight to survive hibernation. They
:02:01. > :02:06.shouldn't be here this time as the year. Nick Miller is on a mission
:02:06. > :02:11.to explain the jet stream. It is the way that it behaved was a
:02:11. > :02:14.problem. I know some people who want to know more. Six months after
:02:14. > :02:19.this village was flooded, we meet the couple who still cannot move
:02:19. > :02:24.back into their hair in. The water was coming into the property and we
:02:24. > :02:34.knew we lost everything. I will be finding out how constant rain can
:02:34. > :02:39.
:02:39. > :02:44.turn our coastline into a debt trap. -- into a death trap. First of all,
:02:44. > :02:47.let's look at the facts. Was this year exceptional? After all, the
:02:47. > :02:52.British weather is notoriously fickle and we are used to taking
:02:52. > :02:56.most things in our stride. It is raining again and I've come to
:02:56. > :03:04.Oxford to take a boat trip on the weather Thames. -- on the River
:03:04. > :03:09.Thames. Joining me in his Jerry White. His company has become --
:03:09. > :03:12.special interest in this river because the Thames provides water
:03:12. > :03:19.for 8 million homes but last spring, his customers were banned from
:03:19. > :03:25.using hosepipes. We have two years of extremely dry winters which
:03:25. > :03:27.meant the ground water that is the lifeblood that drives the rivers
:03:28. > :03:33.started to the seat and we were heading into a serious drought,
:03:33. > :03:39.even worse than 1976. Unprecedented rainfall followed which meant the
:03:39. > :03:42.groundwater has recovered and today the river is brimful, plenty still
:03:42. > :03:47.falling from the sky. It is looking good for next year but it was on a
:03:47. > :03:53.knife-edge for quite some time. important is the Thames for the
:03:53. > :03:59.community around here? Is the water that people are drinking? With in
:03:59. > :04:02.our catchment, 80% of the drinking water comes out of the Thames. It
:04:02. > :04:08.is the lifeblood of the whole of the sigh of East. A lot of the
:04:08. > :04:14.water has taken out of the river, treated and paid to people's homes.
:04:14. > :04:19.Sir fluctuations in levels can produce a problem? Of course, with
:04:19. > :04:23.climate change and the weather becoming less predictable, we are
:04:23. > :04:27.going to have to think about how we manage this because the South East
:04:27. > :04:31.of the UK is classified as a seriously Watters stressed region
:04:31. > :04:35.which means the amount we have naturally occurring in the
:04:35. > :04:40.environment and that we can take the water supply and agriculture is
:04:40. > :04:44.maxed out, it is used. We need customers to think more carefully
:04:44. > :04:49.about how they use water but we need to think about where our next
:04:49. > :04:54.supplies are coming from, whether that means building new reservoirs,
:04:55. > :05:04.so that we have somewhere to put it for when it is dry. Or new
:05:05. > :05:08.
:05:08. > :05:11.technology, like desalination. many of us, this year's unusual
:05:11. > :05:18.weather was an inconvenience but for Britain's wildlife, the effects
:05:18. > :05:21.were much more serious. I am at Oxford University's natural history
:05:21. > :05:31.museum and besides housing remarkable specimens, its tower is
:05:31. > :05:32.
:05:32. > :05:36.home to one of the world's longest running studies of wild birds.
:05:36. > :05:40.These are swifts. They spent most of their time in Africa, coming to
:05:40. > :05:46.Britain for just a couple of months to raise their young. Here, they
:05:46. > :05:52.use the ventilation shafts and in 1948, nest boxes were installed so
:05:52. > :05:57.they could be observed. The birds are long gong, leaving just a few
:05:57. > :06:00.unhatched eggs. This year's breeding season was a disaster.
:06:00. > :06:05.those that hatched, we saw something extraordinary which has
:06:05. > :06:09.never been seen in this colony before, which was adults abandoning
:06:09. > :06:13.checks within a few days of hatching. It has to be the poor
:06:13. > :06:20.food supply. These have got to be pretty serious. That maternal
:06:20. > :06:25.instinct is strong. The swifts feed on aerial insects. That food supply,
:06:25. > :06:34.those insects, they were hit badly by heavy rain and we had torrential
:06:34. > :06:38.rain especially in June-July, which is a critical period for the swifts.
:06:38. > :06:44.Normally, we would have something like 100 chicks flitting from the
:06:44. > :06:51.nest boxes in the Museum Tower. This year, there were only 14, this
:06:51. > :06:55.was the worst yet over. There are many similar stories. As a much
:06:55. > :07:00.loved bruited struggled to breed this more -- this year. Decant them
:07:00. > :07:06.as they fed on were washed off the trees. Butterflies also found it
:07:06. > :07:10.tough. They need warm and dry weather and a national survey
:07:10. > :07:15.revealed 11 common species declined by a third. For some animals, the
:07:15. > :07:18.bad weather has had a knock-on effect. This is St Tiggywinkles
:07:18. > :07:28.hospital in Buckinghamshire and I've come to meet Les Stocker who
:07:28. > :07:30.
:07:30. > :07:34.runs it. Les is one of my heroes, caring for sick and injured wild
:07:34. > :07:40.animals has been his life's work and if anything is wrong in the
:07:40. > :07:45.countryside, he will be one of the first to know. This winter, he is
:07:45. > :07:49.worried about hedgehogs. They are just too small for this time of
:07:49. > :07:54.year. They have got to be a certain weight to survive hibernation and
:07:54. > :08:00.they will never make it if they do not have good weight. They don't
:08:00. > :08:04.have to hibernate here. Why have we seen this trend? The weather has
:08:04. > :08:09.mucked it up. At the beginning of the year, there was no food around
:08:09. > :08:14.because of the drought. They didn't feel fit enough to breed. With the
:08:14. > :08:18.wet weather, they started to breed late. Baby hedgehogs were being
:08:18. > :08:24.seen in October. They shouldn't be here this time of year. How much
:08:24. > :08:29.bigger should they be to survive hibernation? Six times bigger, 600
:08:29. > :08:34.grams. They've got to get bigger. So he's got a long way off?
:08:34. > :08:38.would not make it this side of Christmas. We're getting a lot of
:08:38. > :08:46.these had trucks and we've got to keep them here. We have got to keep
:08:46. > :08:52.them all winter and fatten them up. In just one week in June, St
:08:52. > :08:56.Tiggywinkles received 21 red kites. After days of heavy rain, they were
:08:56. > :09:00.waterlogged and could not take off. These magnificent birds are common
:09:00. > :09:06.in this part of Britain but how many more must have died in the day
:09:06. > :09:11.you? It is clear this extraordinary weather has had a big impact across
:09:11. > :09:14.our region. So we know what happened. But why did it happen?
:09:14. > :09:17.For a global look at the causes of the year of weird weather, here's
:09:17. > :09:20.meteorologist Nick Miller. In the spring of 2012, England was
:09:20. > :09:25.dry. Reservoirs were dangerously low, much of the country was in
:09:25. > :09:28.drought. And I was in a parched aquifer somewhere underneath Sussex.
:09:28. > :09:33.We're in a very, very serious situation. Our underground sources,
:09:33. > :09:36.our underground aquifers are very, very low. It seemed that the only
:09:36. > :09:46.thing that could save us would be a highly unusual long spell of heavy
:09:46. > :09:47.
:09:47. > :09:53.rain. But you should be careful what you wish for. The worst
:09:53. > :09:57.drought since 1976 was followed by the wettest April to June on record.
:09:57. > :10:02.I'm going to find out what the scientists say are the reasons for
:10:02. > :10:08.this. I've equipped myself with a huge globe to put things into
:10:08. > :10:18.perspective. And I'm going to go to meet the people who were badly hit
:10:18. > :10:24.
:10:24. > :10:29.First stop, North Tyneside, hit by a flash flood in June. It was
:10:29. > :10:33.really surreal. It was a weird sight you know looking out your
:10:33. > :10:37.window and just seeing a man in a canoe going down the street.
:10:37. > :10:47.I've come to the exact same street to tell the residents the reason
:10:47. > :10:48.
:10:48. > :10:51.for the canoeists. And to do that you've got to look at things with a
:10:51. > :10:57.global perspective, which is why I've got this here, and in
:10:57. > :11:01.particular we've got to look at this. This is the jet stream. Now
:11:01. > :11:04.the jet stream is a ribbon of fast moving air, about six miles up in
:11:04. > :11:08.the atmosphere, which carries those weather systems. It's the dividing
:11:08. > :11:12.line between the cold polar air and the warmer air across us and to the
:11:12. > :11:15.south of us. And it heads in the general direction of the UK because
:11:15. > :11:20.of the rotation of the Earth. And it drives our weather, according to
:11:20. > :11:23.Adam Scaife from the Met Office. The reason it's important is the
:11:23. > :11:29.jet stream guides and carries storms across the Atlantic to the
:11:29. > :11:34.UK. So it's the first order thing that determines the UK weather. So
:11:34. > :11:36.the jet stream pushes bad weather towards us? Absolutely. But the
:11:36. > :11:41.fact that the jet stream exists doesn't explain canoeing on the
:11:41. > :11:45.streets of North Tyneside. No. It's the way the jet stream behaved that
:11:45. > :11:55.was the problem. And I know some people in West Sussex who would
:11:55. > :11:57.
:11:57. > :12:06.like to know more. I'm on my way to a place called Bracklesham Bay. One
:12:06. > :12:12.night in June, they had a month's And the Sussex Beach Holiday
:12:12. > :12:16.Village on the coast took the brunt. I got called out early hours about
:12:16. > :12:20.two, three. And I had to start evacuating people because it was
:12:20. > :12:23.flooding their chalets. So let's speak to the workers of the holiday
:12:23. > :12:27.park about the fact there is a pattern to the way the jet stream
:12:27. > :12:32.normally behaves across the year. In winter, the jet stream is
:12:32. > :12:35.normally here running across the Atlantic towards the UK. So we will,
:12:35. > :12:39.as you know, we'd expect to get some spalls of rain in winter. But
:12:39. > :12:44.this time things were different. So says Len Shaffrey from the
:12:44. > :12:49.University of Reading. In 2012, the jet stream was much further south
:12:49. > :12:53.than we kind of expect. What it meant was all the storms that
:12:53. > :12:58.normally hit the UK were going into Spain and Portugal. And that meant
:12:58. > :13:02.it was much drier in the UK than normally. Would that be any cause
:13:02. > :13:06.of the drought? Absolutely. Because if you don't have the jet stream
:13:06. > :13:10.carrying wet weather systems to the UK as it should have been in the
:13:10. > :13:13.winter, and it's further south, we end up drier. And that's why the
:13:13. > :13:18.end of our winter, the start of this year, there was so much fear
:13:18. > :13:23.about drought and what would happen if we had a third dry winter. And
:13:23. > :13:26.then, when summer came around, the jet stream was still too far south.
:13:26. > :13:32.Now, in the summer, we'd normally expect the jet stream to be north
:13:32. > :13:37.of the UK. And that means we're in that warm weather. We get spells of
:13:37. > :13:42.lovely warm sunshine. That's the plan anyway. We know that didn't
:13:42. > :13:45.happen this year. Rather than the jet stream being further north over
:13:45. > :13:47.Iceland, the storms that normally miss us were too far south and
:13:47. > :13:51.basically hit the UK bringing really heavy rainfall and the
:13:52. > :13:55.flooding that we saw. So the jet stream was in the wrong place for
:13:55. > :13:58.us all year? Absolutely. And that's why all year long our weather
:13:58. > :14:04.hasn't fitted the normal pattern we expect. Basically, the jet stream
:14:04. > :14:08.was in the wrong place and it got stuck. But do the scientists have
:14:08. > :14:14.any theories about why it got stuck? That's a question being
:14:14. > :14:16.asked by one particular man in Devon. After a night of intense
:14:16. > :14:23.rain in the village of Yealmpton near Plymouth, Alan Frame found
:14:23. > :14:28.himself trapped in his house. leaning out the bedroom window
:14:28. > :14:32.waving to the emergency services just trying to get help. And what
:14:32. > :14:36.the villagers want to know is this. So why was the jet stream in the
:14:36. > :14:42.wrong position? Very good question. Twist it with me a little bit. So,
:14:42. > :14:46.I want to go over towards North America, that's it. There we go.
:14:46. > :14:49.And I want to take you to the sea here where we know the temperature
:14:49. > :14:54.of the sea here is higher than normal and it has been for quite a
:14:54. > :14:57.while. The theory is that because the sea is warmer than normal, the
:14:57. > :15:07.jet stream doesn't get that push north and actually will end up
:15:07. > :15:08.
:15:08. > :15:12.further south and take those So if you influence the origin of
:15:12. > :15:16.the jet stream, it's a bit like waving a long stick. You can have a
:15:16. > :15:21.big effect at the end of the jet stream moving it away or onto the
:15:21. > :15:25.UK. And the interesting thing is, we've seen this before in the 1950s.
:15:25. > :15:29.Where does all the bad weather come from? The north Atlantic sea
:15:29. > :15:34.temperature went up in a similar way, and at the same time there was
:15:34. > :15:38.a corresponding series of wet summers. That is one theory.
:15:38. > :15:41.Another theory relates to Arctic sea ice. You may have seen the
:15:41. > :15:46.reports this year about the fact that the sea ice melted to a degree
:15:46. > :15:50.that we've never seen before it was that low. One of the suggestions is
:15:50. > :15:53.that change in the amount of Arctic sea ice has led to shifts in the
:15:54. > :16:00.position of the jet stream and then to changes in the kind of weather
:16:00. > :16:03.we get in the UK. But of course, what we really want to know is what
:16:03. > :16:08.are the summers going to be like in the future? Well it depends which
:16:08. > :16:10.of those two theories has the most effect. It's the relationship
:16:10. > :16:13.between those two and which is strongest which will determine what
:16:13. > :16:17.happens next. But in principle, if the North Atlantic warming reverses,
:16:17. > :16:23.then it could be that we flip into the opposite regime and have hot
:16:23. > :16:26.dry summers in a decade or two from now. But what if it's the second
:16:26. > :16:32.theory, the melting of the arctic ice which is the dominant factor -
:16:32. > :16:36.what happens then? We think that the decline in Arctic sea ice is
:16:36. > :16:40.part of man-made climate change. So as the globe warms up the amount of
:16:40. > :16:43.Arctic sea ice is just declining. And if it's that which is
:16:43. > :16:46.dominating the position of the jet stream then we're going into
:16:46. > :16:49.uncharted waters and we're kind of going into a position where the
:16:49. > :16:53.weather that we are experiencing in the summer may be starting to
:16:53. > :16:57.change. What a year of weather it's been and the answers lie well
:16:57. > :17:01.beyond our shores. Now if the North Atlantic cools down we might get
:17:01. > :17:11.our sunny summers back. But if it's all down to the melting Arctic sea
:17:11. > :17:15.
:17:15. > :17:19.ice we're just going to have to The science behind this year's
:17:19. > :17:26.extraordinary weather. In some parts of the country, things were
:17:26. > :17:36.exceptionally bad light here near Bognor Regis. Six months ago, this
:17:36. > :17:37.
:17:37. > :17:42.road was under three feet of water. The rain was so heavy, the water
:17:42. > :17:46.was cascading down the roof, hitting the gutters and the gutters
:17:46. > :17:50.were overflowing. By 10 o'clock in the morning, the water was coming
:17:50. > :17:55.into the property and we lost everything. On the night of June
:17:55. > :17:58.10th, this village was hit by a deluge. In a few hours and a
:17:58. > :18:03.leaflet -- five inches of rain fell on the village. That is more than
:18:03. > :18:12.they normally get in two months. With a maximum temperature of just
:18:12. > :18:17.11 degrees, the South had its coldest June day for 23 years. Six
:18:17. > :18:27.months on, and the pain is far from over for Jane and Dave. Their house
:18:27. > :18:30.is still drying out so they are living in a caravan. We knew what
:18:31. > :18:36.was going to happen because we saw it rising outside the house. We
:18:36. > :18:44.didn't believe it would actually come into the house. It was just
:18:44. > :18:47.awful. Did you try and save bits of furniture? At that stage, we did.
:18:47. > :18:52.It was all hands to the pubs in terms of getting what we could
:18:52. > :18:57.upstairs but there it -- there was only a limit -- only limit to what
:18:57. > :19:04.we could salvage. With plaster hacked from the walls, they've had
:19:04. > :19:10.fans running for weeks to get rid of the damp. This was our kitchen.
:19:10. > :19:15.But why did this happen? By mid- June, the ground-share was already
:19:15. > :19:19.saturated and the drainage system could not handle so much rain. It
:19:19. > :19:22.is the same story right now. Groundwater levels are above normal
:19:22. > :19:28.throughout the region and that is why many places have been flooded
:19:28. > :19:34.in recent weeks. The danger has not gone away. I do fear it will happen
:19:34. > :19:41.again. All I can think to do at this stage is to build a brick wall
:19:41. > :19:46.around the property and put some sort of floodgates in. But it will
:19:46. > :19:51.cost money. The Dave and Jane already face bills of �80,000.
:19:51. > :19:58.were insured this time but many households are finding it hard to
:19:58. > :20:03.get flood cover in his ideas seemed to be at risk. -- In his areas seen
:20:03. > :20:10.to be at risk. Flood protection has become big business. Bognor Regis
:20:10. > :20:16.has even had its own flood fair. The show was packed. We seem to be
:20:17. > :20:21.getting these events where they are very intense and very localised.
:20:21. > :20:26.This summer in particular we have seen 80 % of the flooding this year
:20:26. > :20:36.has been so if -- surface water flooding. This could happen to any
:20:36. > :20:42.of us. So being prepared and may be expecting an event is a good thing
:20:42. > :20:46.to be doing. So flash floods like the one they had here can certainly
:20:47. > :20:50.put people's homes at risk but for some people, the biggest worry is a
:20:50. > :20:58.sustained periods of work weather and of course we had those two this
:20:59. > :21:06.year. This is Kent, the Garden of England. It is home to some of
:21:06. > :21:09.Britain's biggest food growers and they have had a difficult year. At
:21:09. > :21:13.this orchard, pickers are harvesting the last of the apple
:21:13. > :21:17.crop. Apples don't mind what weather and what food there's has
:21:17. > :21:23.ripened well but some growers have seen they yield fall by half. It is
:21:23. > :21:27.all down to bees. During blossom, you could not hear be anywhere and
:21:27. > :21:31.that is a bad sign because it the bees are not out, the pollen is not
:21:31. > :21:36.being moved around and the apples won't be pollinated. We had
:21:36. > :21:39.beekeepers and lots of different farms and plenty of hives around
:21:39. > :21:46.but they just weren't doing anything. It was too cold for them
:21:46. > :21:50.to fly. At father Sion, it is a different story. The last of the
:21:50. > :21:58.strawberry tunnels are coming down on a year when colas could not
:21:58. > :22:02.build -- sell their produce. Strawberries go with sunshine and
:22:02. > :22:06.there wasn't much of it. Prices crashed. The levels of promotion we
:22:06. > :22:12.had to go to this year to move the fruit was beyond anything I've ever
:22:12. > :22:18.seen. In the 25 years I've been growing soft fruit, these have been
:22:19. > :22:23.the lowest prices we've had. Most farmers grow more than one cropper
:22:23. > :22:29.in the hope that not all will fail at once but that is WITH wine-
:22:29. > :22:34.growers. At this vignette in Oxfordshire, yields are down at to
:22:34. > :22:39.80 % are normally her. To make the best of a bad crop, they are
:22:39. > :22:43.producing sparkling rose for the first time. It was cold through
:22:43. > :22:49.April and May into June. The fines did not growing until later than
:22:49. > :22:59.they usually do. There were some varieties here that have not right
:22:59. > :23:00.
:23:00. > :23:08.and it all. -- have not ripened at all. Another summer like this could
:23:08. > :23:12.leave Britain's wine industry on the rocks. But on the coast of
:23:12. > :23:17.Dorset, the weather has brought danger of a different kind. I have
:23:17. > :23:24.come to see one of Britain's most dramatic landscapes. Loved by
:23:24. > :23:32.fossil hunters, this is the Jurassic Coast, 100 miles from
:23:32. > :23:36.Swanage to next month. This area is prone to land slips and there have
:23:36. > :23:41.been more than usual this year. Geologists say the cliffs have been
:23:41. > :23:46.made treacherous by the heavy rain. The rainwater can soak down through
:23:46. > :23:50.it and it breaches the clay and causes the clay surface to become
:23:50. > :23:54.lubricated and that is when landslides happen. For more
:23:54. > :23:58.rainfall we have, the more landslides. You would expect it in
:23:58. > :24:02.the winter but not in the summer. But because of the extraordinary
:24:02. > :24:09.rainfall in the summer, we've had a lot of mud pouring off these clips
:24:09. > :24:12.onto the beach. Two weeks before the summer holidays, thousands of
:24:12. > :24:17.people would you don't hear but we have a condition which you would
:24:17. > :24:22.expect in the winter. If this weather pattern continues, will all
:24:22. > :24:29.this disappear? These cliffs are products of windfall and --
:24:29. > :24:38.rainfall and storms. There is a landslide on this particular cliff
:24:38. > :24:41.if it is overdue and it could be enormous. We could see all of the
:24:41. > :24:46.clifftop trickle and all the vegetation trickling down the
:24:46. > :24:53.cliff-face and that will accelerate away until it is like a Niagara
:24:53. > :24:56.Falls of rock and mud. The heavy rain we've had now you'd think
:24:57. > :25:01.would be enough to make it happen. Last July, a young woman was killed
:25:01. > :25:07.by a landslide at Burton Bradstock. The British Geological Survey said
:25:07. > :25:12.heavy rain was a factor. In wet weather, the mud can be
:25:12. > :25:16.particularly dangerous. This year 11 people were arrested in just
:25:16. > :25:20.four days here on Charmouth beach. You might be wondering why on earth
:25:20. > :25:25.I'm up to my thighs and it. I am here with the rescue team who are
:25:25. > :25:32.going to get me out of the situation. Do you just pull? We've
:25:32. > :25:42.got a very effective method. We are going to use a couple of basket
:25:42. > :25:51.
:25:51. > :26:01.stretches and I use of water under It is like being stuck in
:26:01. > :26:09.
:26:09. > :26:19.superglue! I thought I would never see my toes again! There we go.
:26:19. > :26:22.
:26:22. > :26:25.Thank you so much. It is like having my legs back again. This
:26:25. > :26:30.happens on the beach quite regularly and people get stuck in
:26:30. > :26:34.mud and the tide is coming in and they could be drowned. I was
:26:34. > :26:37.utterly helpless then and the feeling of relief coming out is
:26:37. > :26:43.unimaginable. We have a considerable amount of rain and it
:26:43. > :26:48.has made this mudflow extremely dangerous. There are hazards here
:26:48. > :26:58.but they are manageable if people applied some common sense. These
:26:58. > :27:06.
:27:06. > :27:09.areas of danger -- these are areas of danger. Mud rescues take place
:27:09. > :27:15.along the south coast and if you do get trapped call for help
:27:15. > :27:21.immediately and remember that struggling can make things worse.
:27:21. > :27:27.The coast itself is at the mercy of the elements. In 1824 the harbour
:27:27. > :27:34.at Lyme Regis was destroyed by a violent storm. To protect the town,
:27:34. > :27:38.�16 million was recently spent on sea defences. But even with extreme
:27:38. > :27:43.weather events becoming more common, it is simply too expensive to
:27:43. > :27:48.provide that level of protection everywhere. Many of the South Coast
:27:48. > :27:51.towns including Portsmouth are vulnerable to extreme weather.
:27:51. > :27:56.Along the south and south-east coast, there are pockets of low-
:27:56. > :28:00.lying land. We have built defences around Portsmouth that will reduce
:28:00. > :28:07.the risk but if we saw a very extreme strong it is possible those
:28:07. > :28:11.defences could be overwhelmed. It is not going to be practical or
:28:11. > :28:17.affordable to continue to maintain them indefinitely so it's important
:28:17. > :28:20.the plan for the future. So if we are to experience extremes of
:28:20. > :28:24.weather in the years to come, it may affect not only will lives but
:28:24. > :28:30.the very land in which we live. If that is going to happen or not, we
:28:30. > :28:33.have no way of knowing. The fact is, on our little island, even the