Wild Weather in 2012: South and South East

This is the River Pang and just six miles from here it joins the Thames.

And a few days' time, some of this water will be filling the vast

reservoirs that supply London. There is plenty of it and this is

how it should look when all is well but a few months ago, things were

very different. This was the River Pang last April. It was completely

dry from here at Bucklebury to its source. It was the same story

across the South of England. Reservoirs were shrinking after two

years of drought. Then the skies opened. We had the wettest summer

for 200 years. The Queen's jubilee celebrations were a washout. The

Isle of Wight music festival was a mudbath. Some towns were left awash

by flash floods. It seems to have been raining ever since. What on

earth is happening to our weather? We've been told global warming can

have a huge impact on the way we live our lives but is it happening

already? Was 2012 a one-off? Should we expect more frequent floods and

droughts in the future? In this programme, I will be finding out

how the extreme weather has had a dreadful impact on our wildlife.

They have got to be a certain weight to survive hibernation. They

shouldn't be here this time as the year. Nick Miller is on a mission

to explain the jet stream. It is the way that it behaved was a

problem. I know some people who want to know more. Six months after

this village was flooded, we meet the couple who still cannot move

back into their hair in. The water was coming into the property and we

knew we lost everything. I will be finding out how constant rain can

turn our coastline into a debt trap. -- into a death trap. First of all,

let's look at the facts. Was this year exceptional? After all, the

British weather is notoriously fickle and we are used to taking

most things in our stride. It is raining again and I've come to

Oxford to take a boat trip on the weather Thames. -- on the River

Thames. Joining me in his Jerry White. His company has become --

special interest in this river because the Thames provides water

for 8 million homes but last spring, his customers were banned from

using hosepipes. We have two years of extremely dry winters which

meant the ground water that is the lifeblood that drives the rivers

started to the seat and we were heading into a serious drought,

even worse than 1976. Unprecedented rainfall followed which meant the

groundwater has recovered and today the river is brimful, plenty still

falling from the sky. It is looking good for next year but it was on a

knife-edge for quite some time. important is the Thames for the

community around here? Is the water that people are drinking? With in

our catchment, 80% of the drinking water comes out of the Thames. It

is the lifeblood of the whole of the sigh of East. A lot of the

water has taken out of the river, treated and paid to people's homes.

Sir fluctuations in levels can produce a problem? Of course, with

climate change and the weather becoming less predictable, we are

going to have to think about how we manage this because the South East

of the UK is classified as a seriously Watters stressed region

which means the amount we have naturally occurring in the

environment and that we can take the water supply and agriculture is

maxed out, it is used. We need customers to think more carefully

about how they use water but we need to think about where our next

supplies are coming from, whether that means building new reservoirs,

so that we have somewhere to put it for when it is dry. Or new

technology, like desalination. many of us, this year's unusual

weather was an inconvenience but for Britain's wildlife, the effects

were much more serious. I am at Oxford University's natural history

museum and besides housing remarkable specimens, its tower is

home to one of the world's longest running studies of wild birds.

These are swifts. They spent most of their time in Africa, coming to

Britain for just a couple of months to raise their young. Here, they

use the ventilation shafts and in 1948, nest boxes were installed so

they could be observed. The birds are long gong, leaving just a few

unhatched eggs. This year's breeding season was a disaster.

those that hatched, we saw something extraordinary which has

never been seen in this colony before, which was adults abandoning

checks within a few days of hatching. It has to be the poor

food supply. These have got to be pretty serious. That maternal

instinct is strong. The swifts feed on aerial insects. That food supply,

those insects, they were hit badly by heavy rain and we had torrential

rain especially in June-July, which is a critical period for the swifts.

Normally, we would have something like 100 chicks flitting from the

nest boxes in the Museum Tower. This year, there were only 14, this

was the worst yet over. There are many similar stories. As a much

loved bruited struggled to breed this more -- this year. Decant them

as they fed on were washed off the trees. Butterflies also found it

tough. They need warm and dry weather and a national survey

revealed 11 common species declined by a third. For some animals, the

bad weather has had a knock-on effect. This is St Tiggywinkles

hospital in Buckinghamshire and I've come to meet Les Stocker who

runs it. Les is one of my heroes, caring for sick and injured wild

animals has been his life's work and if anything is wrong in the

countryside, he will be one of the first to know. This winter, he is

worried about hedgehogs. They are just too small for this time of

year. They have got to be a certain weight to survive hibernation and

they will never make it if they do not have good weight. They don't

have to hibernate here. Why have we seen this trend? The weather has

mucked it up. At the beginning of the year, there was no food around

because of the drought. They didn't feel fit enough to breed. With the

wet weather, they started to breed late. Baby hedgehogs were being

seen in October. They shouldn't be here this time of year. How much

bigger should they be to survive hibernation? Six times bigger, 600

grams. They've got to get bigger. So he's got a long way off?

would not make it this side of Christmas. We're getting a lot of

these had trucks and we've got to keep them here. We have got to keep

them all winter and fatten them up. In just one week in June, St

Tiggywinkles received 21 red kites. After days of heavy rain, they were

waterlogged and could not take off. These magnificent birds are common

in this part of Britain but how many more must have died in the day

you? It is clear this extraordinary weather has had a big impact across

our region. So we know what happened. But why did it happen?

For a global look at the causes of the year of weird weather, here's

meteorologist Nick Miller. In the spring of 2012, England was

dry. Reservoirs were dangerously low, much of the country was in

drought. And I was in a parched aquifer somewhere underneath Sussex.

We're in a very, very serious situation. Our underground sources,

our underground aquifers are very, very low. It seemed that the only

thing that could save us would be a highly unusual long spell of heavy

rain. But you should be careful what you wish for. The worst

drought since 1976 was followed by the wettest April to June on record.

I'm going to find out what the scientists say are the reasons for

this. I've equipped myself with a huge globe to put things into

perspective. And I'm going to go to meet the people who were badly hit

First stop, North Tyneside, hit by a flash flood in June. It was

really surreal. It was a weird sight you know looking out your

window and just seeing a man in a canoe going down the street.

I've come to the exact same street to tell the residents the reason

for the canoeists. And to do that you've got to look at things with a

global perspective, which is why I've got this here, and in

particular we've got to look at this. This is the jet stream. Now

the jet stream is a ribbon of fast moving air, about six miles up in

the atmosphere, which carries those weather systems. It's the dividing

line between the cold polar air and the warmer air across us and to the

south of us. And it heads in the general direction of the UK because

of the rotation of the Earth. And it drives our weather, according to

Adam Scaife from the Met Office. The reason it's important is the

jet stream guides and carries storms across the Atlantic to the

UK. So it's the first order thing that determines the UK weather. So

the jet stream pushes bad weather towards us? Absolutely. But the

fact that the jet stream exists doesn't explain canoeing on the

streets of North Tyneside. No. It's the way the jet stream behaved that

was the problem. And I know some people in West Sussex who would

like to know more. I'm on my way to a place called Bracklesham Bay. One

night in June, they had a month's And the Sussex Beach Holiday

Village on the coast took the brunt. I got called out early hours about

two, three. And I had to start evacuating people because it was

flooding their chalets. So let's speak to the workers of the holiday

park about the fact there is a pattern to the way the jet stream

normally behaves across the year. In winter, the jet stream is

normally here running across the Atlantic towards the UK. So we will,

as you know, we'd expect to get some spalls of rain in winter. But

this time things were different. So says Len Shaffrey from the

University of Reading. In 2012, the jet stream was much further south

than we kind of expect. What it meant was all the storms that

normally hit the UK were going into Spain and Portugal. And that meant

it was much drier in the UK than normally. Would that be any cause

of the drought? Absolutely. Because if you don't have the jet stream

carrying wet weather systems to the UK as it should have been in the

winter, and it's further south, we end up drier. And that's why the

end of our winter, the start of this year, there was so much fear

about drought and what would happen if we had a third dry winter. And

then, when summer came around, the jet stream was still too far south.

Now, in the summer, we'd normally expect the jet stream to be north

of the UK. And that means we're in that warm weather. We get spells of

lovely warm sunshine. That's the plan anyway. We know that didn't

happen this year. Rather than the jet stream being further north over

Iceland, the storms that normally miss us were too far south and

basically hit the UK bringing really heavy rainfall and the

flooding that we saw. So the jet stream was in the wrong place for

us all year? Absolutely. And that's why all year long our weather

hasn't fitted the normal pattern we expect. Basically, the jet stream

was in the wrong place and it got stuck. But do the scientists have

any theories about why it got stuck? That's a question being

asked by one particular man in Devon. After a night of intense

rain in the village of Yealmpton near Plymouth, Alan Frame found

himself trapped in his house. leaning out the bedroom window

waving to the emergency services just trying to get help. And what

the villagers want to know is this. So why was the jet stream in the

wrong position? Very good question. Twist it with me a little bit. So,

I want to go over towards North America, that's it. There we go.

And I want to take you to the sea here where we know the temperature

of the sea here is higher than normal and it has been for quite a

while. The theory is that because the sea is warmer than normal, the

jet stream doesn't get that push north and actually will end up

further south and take those So if you influence the origin of

the jet stream, it's a bit like waving a long stick. You can have a

big effect at the end of the jet stream moving it away or onto the

UK. And the interesting thing is, we've seen this before in the 1950s.

Where does all the bad weather come from? The north Atlantic sea

temperature went up in a similar way, and at the same time there was

a corresponding series of wet summers. That is one theory.

Another theory relates to Arctic sea ice. You may have seen the

reports this year about the fact that the sea ice melted to a degree

that we've never seen before it was that low. One of the suggestions is

that change in the amount of Arctic sea ice has led to shifts in the

position of the jet stream and then to changes in the kind of weather

we get in the UK. But of course, what we really want to know is what

are the summers going to be like in the future? Well it depends which

of those two theories has the most effect. It's the relationship

between those two and which is strongest which will determine what

happens next. But in principle, if the North Atlantic warming reverses,

then it could be that we flip into the opposite regime and have hot

dry summers in a decade or two from now. But what if it's the second

theory, the melting of the arctic ice which is the dominant factor -

what happens then? We think that the decline in Arctic sea ice is

part of man-made climate change. So as the globe warms up the amount of

Arctic sea ice is just declining. And if it's that which is

dominating the position of the jet stream then we're going into

uncharted waters and we're kind of going into a position where the

weather that we are experiencing in the summer may be starting to

change. What a year of weather it's been and the answers lie well

beyond our shores. Now if the North Atlantic cools down we might get

our sunny summers back. But if it's all down to the melting Arctic sea

ice we're just going to have to The science behind this year's

extraordinary weather. In some parts of the country, things were

exceptionally bad light here near Bognor Regis. Six months ago, this

road was under three feet of water. The rain was so heavy, the water

was cascading down the roof, hitting the gutters and the gutters

were overflowing. By 10 o'clock in the morning, the water was coming

into the property and we lost everything. On the night of June

10th, this village was hit by a deluge. In a few hours and a

leaflet -- five inches of rain fell on the village. That is more than

they normally get in two months. With a maximum temperature of just

11 degrees, the South had its coldest June day for 23 years. Six

months on, and the pain is far from over for Jane and Dave. Their house

is still drying out so they are living in a caravan. We knew what

was going to happen because we saw it rising outside the house. We

didn't believe it would actually come into the house. It was just

awful. Did you try and save bits of furniture? At that stage, we did.

It was all hands to the pubs in terms of getting what we could

upstairs but there it -- there was only a limit -- only limit to what

we could salvage. With plaster hacked from the walls, they've had

fans running for weeks to get rid of the damp. This was our kitchen.

But why did this happen? By mid- June, the ground-share was already

saturated and the drainage system could not handle so much rain. It

is the same story right now. Groundwater levels are above normal

throughout the region and that is why many places have been flooded

in recent weeks. The danger has not gone away. I do fear it will happen

again. All I can think to do at this stage is to build a brick wall

around the property and put some sort of floodgates in. But it will

cost money. The Dave and Jane already face bills of �80,000.

were insured this time but many households are finding it hard to

get flood cover in his ideas seemed to be at risk. -- In his areas seen

to be at risk. Flood protection has become big business. Bognor Regis

has even had its own flood fair. The show was packed. We seem to be

getting these events where they are very intense and very localised.

This summer in particular we have seen 80 % of the flooding this year

has been so if -- surface water flooding. This could happen to any

of us. So being prepared and may be expecting an event is a good thing

to be doing. So flash floods like the one they had here can certainly

put people's homes at risk but for some people, the biggest worry is a

sustained periods of work weather and of course we had those two this

year. This is Kent, the Garden of England. It is home to some of

Britain's biggest food growers and they have had a difficult year. At

this orchard, pickers are harvesting the last of the apple

crop. Apples don't mind what weather and what food there's has

ripened well but some growers have seen they yield fall by half. It is

all down to bees. During blossom, you could not hear be anywhere and

that is a bad sign because it the bees are not out, the pollen is not

being moved around and the apples won't be pollinated. We had

beekeepers and lots of different farms and plenty of hives around

but they just weren't doing anything. It was too cold for them

to fly. At father Sion, it is a different story. The last of the

strawberry tunnels are coming down on a year when colas could not

build -- sell their produce. Strawberries go with sunshine and

there wasn't much of it. Prices crashed. The levels of promotion we

had to go to this year to move the fruit was beyond anything I've ever

seen. In the 25 years I've been growing soft fruit, these have been

the lowest prices we've had. Most farmers grow more than one cropper

in the hope that not all will fail at once but that is WITH wine-

growers. At this vignette in Oxfordshire, yields are down at to

80 % are normally her. To make the best of a bad crop, they are

producing sparkling rose for the first time. It was cold through

April and May into June. The fines did not growing until later than

they usually do. There were some varieties here that have not right

and it all. -- have not ripened at all. Another summer like this could

leave Britain's wine industry on the rocks. But on the coast of

Dorset, the weather has brought danger of a different kind. I have

come to see one of Britain's most dramatic landscapes. Loved by

fossil hunters, this is the Jurassic Coast, 100 miles from

Swanage to next month. This area is prone to land slips and there have

been more than usual this year. Geologists say the cliffs have been

made treacherous by the heavy rain. The rainwater can soak down through

it and it breaches the clay and causes the clay surface to become

lubricated and that is when landslides happen. For more

rainfall we have, the more landslides. You would expect it in

the winter but not in the summer. But because of the extraordinary

rainfall in the summer, we've had a lot of mud pouring off these clips

onto the beach. Two weeks before the summer holidays, thousands of

people would you don't hear but we have a condition which you would

expect in the winter. If this weather pattern continues, will all

this disappear? These cliffs are products of windfall and --

rainfall and storms. There is a landslide on this particular cliff

if it is overdue and it could be enormous. We could see all of the

clifftop trickle and all the vegetation trickling down the

cliff-face and that will accelerate away until it is like a Niagara

Falls of rock and mud. The heavy rain we've had now you'd think

would be enough to make it happen. Last July, a young woman was killed

by a landslide at Burton Bradstock. The British Geological Survey said

heavy rain was a factor. In wet weather, the mud can be

particularly dangerous. This year 11 people were arrested in just

four days here on Charmouth beach. You might be wondering why on earth

I'm up to my thighs and it. I am here with the rescue team who are

going to get me out of the situation. Do you just pull? We've

got a very effective method. We are going to use a couple of basket

stretches and I use of water under It is like being stuck in

superglue! I thought I would never see my toes again! There we go.

Thank you so much. It is like having my legs back again. This

happens on the beach quite regularly and people get stuck in

mud and the tide is coming in and they could be drowned. I was

utterly helpless then and the feeling of relief coming out is

unimaginable. We have a considerable amount of rain and it

has made this mudflow extremely dangerous. There are hazards here

but they are manageable if people applied some common sense. These

areas of danger -- these are areas of danger. Mud rescues take place

along the south coast and if you do get trapped call for help

immediately and remember that struggling can make things worse.

The coast itself is at the mercy of the elements. In 1824 the harbour

at Lyme Regis was destroyed by a violent storm. To protect the town,

�16 million was recently spent on sea defences. But even with extreme

weather events becoming more common, it is simply too expensive to

provide that level of protection everywhere. Many of the South Coast

towns including Portsmouth are vulnerable to extreme weather.

Along the south and south-east coast, there are pockets of low-

lying land. We have built defences around Portsmouth that will reduce

the risk but if we saw a very extreme strong it is possible those

defences could be overwhelmed. It is not going to be practical or

affordable to continue to maintain them indefinitely so it's important

the plan for the future. So if we are to experience extremes of

weather in the years to come, it may affect not only will lives but

the very land in which we live. If that is going to happen or not, we

have no way of knowing. The fact is, on our little island, even the