Global Weirding

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0:00:05 > 0:00:08THUNDER CLAP

0:00:08 > 0:00:11'Something strange is happening to our weather.

0:00:12 > 0:00:15'It seems to be getting more extreme.'

0:00:19 > 0:00:23Yeah, it could be a record-breaking cold night...

0:00:23 > 0:00:26'Britain recently shivered through two

0:00:26 > 0:00:29'back-to-back record-breaking cold winters.

0:00:32 > 0:00:36'Last year, Scotland splashed through its wettest year on record.

0:00:36 > 0:00:38'Yet earlier in the year,

0:00:38 > 0:00:43'parts of eastern England had their driest spring ever.

0:00:43 > 0:00:45'But the UK's not alone.

0:00:47 > 0:00:51'Records are being broken all over the planet.'

0:00:51 > 0:00:56I have never, ever seen anything like this before.

0:01:04 > 0:01:06'Storms appear to be getting bigger.'

0:01:06 > 0:01:10Hurricane power has more than doubled

0:01:10 > 0:01:14between the decade of the '80s and this past decade.

0:01:20 > 0:01:22'The weather's been getting so weird

0:01:22 > 0:01:26'that in some places, record-breaking rain

0:01:26 > 0:01:29'has been followed by record-breaking drought.'

0:01:30 > 0:01:32We've never had

0:01:32 > 0:01:36this kind of steep oscillation go from one year to the next.

0:01:39 > 0:01:43'Some scientists are calling it global weirding.'

0:01:43 > 0:01:45Events that used to be random and extreme

0:01:45 > 0:01:49are becoming much more frequent and severe.

0:01:49 > 0:01:53We are going to live in a different world than the one we grew up in.

0:02:13 > 0:02:17'Our weather is hypnotically beautiful.

0:02:17 > 0:02:20'It's constantly changing,

0:02:20 > 0:02:23'famously difficult to predict.

0:02:25 > 0:02:29'But why does it seem to be getting weirder?

0:02:31 > 0:02:37'The world's leading weather scientists are trying to understand what's happening.

0:02:38 > 0:02:41'It's part of a global investigation.

0:02:43 > 0:02:46'Because however local your weather feels,

0:02:46 > 0:02:52'it's a small part of what plays out across the planet as a whole.

0:02:59 > 0:03:06'It may seem obvious, but one place scientists are trying to get to grips with global weather extremes

0:03:06 > 0:03:10'is in one of the most extreme weather events on Earth.

0:03:16 > 0:03:20'And there's no bigger weather event than a hurricane.

0:03:27 > 0:03:30'That's where people like Jason Dunion come in.

0:03:30 > 0:03:33'He's a hurricane scientist

0:03:33 > 0:03:36'who's turned in his white coat

0:03:36 > 0:03:41'for a blue jumpsuit, and left the lab for the MacDill Air Force base

0:03:41 > 0:03:43'in Tampa, Florida.

0:03:45 > 0:03:47'Because Jason and his colleagues

0:03:47 > 0:03:51'fly these aircraft into the middle of the weather madness.

0:03:54 > 0:03:58'It's the best way to work out what really makes hurricanes tick.'

0:03:58 > 0:04:01COMMUNICATIONS ON RADIO

0:04:10 > 0:04:13You can't get everything you need to know about a hurricane

0:04:13 > 0:04:18by looking at it from satellites or a buoy that's measuring the storm.

0:04:18 > 0:04:21So we've got to fly into that storm.

0:04:21 > 0:04:24Whether we're dropping instruments into it

0:04:24 > 0:04:30or using radars to get a three-dimensional picture of what's going on.

0:04:30 > 0:04:32You can't do that in any other way.

0:04:37 > 0:04:41'Carrying out complicated scientific experiments in a hurricane

0:04:41 > 0:04:45'creates its own set of unique problems.'

0:04:47 > 0:04:49You're coming in at 10,000 feet,

0:04:49 > 0:04:53passing through outer rain bands, getting jostled around in the plane.

0:04:53 > 0:04:55Then you go through the eye wall,

0:04:55 > 0:05:00that doughnut around the eye of a storm that's really intense.

0:05:00 > 0:05:02You're tossed around pretty good.

0:05:02 > 0:05:06You can lose a few hundred feet of altitude in a few seconds.

0:05:06 > 0:05:09Pop through that eye wall and it's incredible.

0:05:14 > 0:05:18You're in what looks like a football stadium.

0:05:18 > 0:05:22The biggest one you've ever seen. It can be ten, 20, 30 miles across.

0:05:22 > 0:05:24And it's very still.

0:05:24 > 0:05:30It's a surreal spot in the storm, after what you've gone through.

0:05:30 > 0:05:32And you know this is a beast.

0:05:36 > 0:05:40But you're only through half the storm. There's still halfway to go.

0:05:50 > 0:05:55'The hurricane chasers produce mountains of data from every flight.

0:05:57 > 0:06:02'One of the things they've discovered is that hurricanes pulse at night.

0:06:02 > 0:06:08'More significantly, they've also recorded an increase in the number of category five storms,

0:06:08 > 0:06:12'the most extreme and powerful hurricanes.'

0:06:12 > 0:06:15We've seen many category fives over the years.

0:06:15 > 0:06:19We certainly have better tracking capabilities.

0:06:19 > 0:06:22We can see category fives in the middle of the ocean

0:06:22 > 0:06:25that we would have missed 50 years ago.

0:06:25 > 0:06:29There have been more major hurricanes in recent years

0:06:29 > 0:06:34and we're trying to understand why, but we have to keep an eye on those.

0:06:34 > 0:06:39Those are the storms that can cause all the damage.

0:06:42 > 0:06:48'So, Jason and his fellow hurricane chasers are recording more category five storms.

0:06:48 > 0:06:54'This is a development that scientists are starting to grapple with.

0:07:16 > 0:07:20'North Atlantic hurricanes only account for about 11%

0:07:20 > 0:07:23'of the world's tropical cyclones.

0:07:23 > 0:07:25'But Professor Kerry Emanuel,

0:07:25 > 0:07:29'one of the world's leading hurricane experts,

0:07:29 > 0:07:33'has started to see something of a pattern in his own backyard.'

0:07:35 > 0:07:41This last decade was the worst in the record books.

0:07:41 > 0:07:452005 was especially bad. We had a record number of hurricanes.

0:07:45 > 0:07:49So many they ran out of letters and had to go to the Greek alphabet.

0:07:49 > 0:07:56'Professor Emanuel is trying to figure out why this might be happening.

0:07:56 > 0:07:59'One crucial factor is the mechanism

0:07:59 > 0:08:04'that's at the core of what makes them work in the first place.

0:08:07 > 0:08:10'Hurricanes are driven by heat.

0:08:10 > 0:08:15'In fact, they're quite simply massive heat engines.

0:08:15 > 0:08:19'They effectively transfer warmth from the ocean...

0:08:20 > 0:08:23'..into the atmosphere.

0:08:25 > 0:08:28'As all of that heat drifts upwards,

0:08:28 > 0:08:32'it gets whipped into huge hurricane-force winds.

0:08:37 > 0:08:41'This is a process we all have personal experience of.'

0:08:44 > 0:08:50When people go outside, one of the main reasons we feel cool is water evaporating from our skin.

0:08:50 > 0:08:54And when water evaporates from us, it chills us.

0:08:54 > 0:08:59That energy doesn't disappear. It goes into the atmosphere.

0:08:59 > 0:09:06When water evaporates from the oceans it takes heat out the oceans and puts it into the atmosphere.

0:09:08 > 0:09:11'Hurricanes are so powerful

0:09:11 > 0:09:15'because the heat energy transferred from the ocean to the atmosphere

0:09:15 > 0:09:18'is unimaginably huge.

0:09:19 > 0:09:24'They take heat from hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean.

0:09:25 > 0:09:27'The average hurricane turns that

0:09:27 > 0:09:31'into three trillion watts of kinetic energy.

0:09:33 > 0:09:37'The equivalent of a ten megaton nuclear bomb exploding

0:09:37 > 0:09:40'about every 20 minutes.

0:09:50 > 0:09:54'Because they are driven by heat, hurricanes are sensitive

0:09:54 > 0:09:59'to any changes in the temperature of the Atlantic ocean.

0:10:02 > 0:10:06'And that's recently been on the rise.'

0:10:08 > 0:10:11Part of this increase in hurricane power

0:10:11 > 0:10:17from the '80s to recent times, is related to sea surface temperature.

0:10:17 > 0:10:24As the temperature goes up, this thermal disequilibrium between the ocean and atmosphere also goes up.

0:10:24 > 0:10:28It goes up at a rate that would increase the wind speed

0:10:28 > 0:10:31of hurricanes maybe 7% for every one degree C.

0:10:31 > 0:10:35But we've seen a lot more than 7% for half a degree.

0:10:35 > 0:10:37So we're trying to understand that.

0:10:41 > 0:10:45'But he's not just interested in what's happened in the past.

0:10:45 > 0:10:48'He's trying to get a sense of what the future might be

0:10:48 > 0:10:52'if ocean temperatures continue to rise.'

0:10:55 > 0:10:59If we look at the distribution of hurricanes in the present climate,

0:10:59 > 0:11:03with weak storms over on this side

0:11:03 > 0:11:07and strong storms over on this side,

0:11:07 > 0:11:10what we see is lots of weak events.

0:11:10 > 0:11:15And as you go towards stronger events the numbers decline,

0:11:15 > 0:11:17until you get to a speed limit

0:11:17 > 0:11:22which, in today's climate, is about 200 miles per hour.

0:11:22 > 0:11:27Now, after the climate warms, the distribution's expected to look

0:11:27 > 0:11:29more like this...

0:11:30 > 0:11:34..with fewer weak storms up here,

0:11:34 > 0:11:37but more strong storms.

0:11:37 > 0:11:41We expect that speed limit will go up to something like

0:11:41 > 0:11:44220 miles per hour.

0:11:52 > 0:11:56'But the weirding of hurricanes doesn't stop there.

0:11:56 > 0:11:59'Professor Emanuel believes

0:11:59 > 0:12:04'that in the future, we can expect hurricanes in parts of the world

0:12:04 > 0:12:06'that have never seen them before.

0:12:08 > 0:12:11'He calls these "black swan events".'

0:12:14 > 0:12:16I spends a lot of time

0:12:16 > 0:12:20modelling hurricanes in the current climate and future climates.

0:12:20 > 0:12:24When we do that, we begin to see hurricanes

0:12:24 > 0:12:30that haven't happened yet in history, but could happen on physical grounds.

0:12:30 > 0:12:33We call those "black swan events", the particularly bad ones.

0:12:33 > 0:12:38This worries me because there are places around the world

0:12:38 > 0:12:42that are at great risk from hurricanes.

0:12:42 > 0:12:47Some of which don't know they're at great risk from hurricanes.

0:12:50 > 0:12:53'It seems scarcely credible,

0:12:53 > 0:12:57'but one of the places he thinks could be hit by a hurricane

0:12:57 > 0:13:00'is here in Dubai

0:13:00 > 0:13:02'in the Persian Gulf.'

0:13:04 > 0:13:09The Persian Gulf is a body of water that gets very hot in the summer.

0:13:09 > 0:13:13Really hot. The hot water runs very deep, as well.

0:13:13 > 0:13:17To our knowledge, in the limited history of the region,

0:13:17 > 0:13:19there hasn't been a hurricane there.

0:13:19 > 0:13:23There may have been one in the distant past that wasn't recorded.

0:13:23 > 0:13:26Our models tell us there could be.

0:13:26 > 0:13:32They'd be rare, but if a hurricane ever happened there, it could get very intense. Even today, it could.

0:13:32 > 0:13:34Winds well over 200 miles per hour.

0:13:34 > 0:13:36It worries us

0:13:36 > 0:13:39because we see a lot of building going on

0:13:39 > 0:13:43with no thought that there might be a risk from hurricanes.

0:13:47 > 0:13:50'One of the important things about the weather

0:13:50 > 0:13:54'is that small changes in temperature that we hardly notice

0:13:54 > 0:13:57'can whip up storms we can't avoid.

0:14:03 > 0:14:05'But how are these small changes

0:14:05 > 0:14:10'having an impact on weather events in other parts of the world?

0:14:23 > 0:14:25'This is west Texas,

0:14:25 > 0:14:29'where they're very comfortable with extremes.

0:14:29 > 0:14:31'Big cars.

0:14:32 > 0:14:34'Big hats.

0:14:34 > 0:14:38'And big farms aren't the exception, but the norm.

0:14:41 > 0:14:43'But this isn't normal.

0:14:46 > 0:14:51'These fields should be white, covered in blooming cotton.

0:14:51 > 0:14:53'But all that's blowing in the wind...

0:14:55 > 0:14:57'..is dust.

0:15:00 > 0:15:04'Matt Farmer has been growing cotton here for most of his life,

0:15:04 > 0:15:09'and he's been looking in desperation for any sign of rain.'

0:15:09 > 0:15:11I'm 51 years old.

0:15:11 > 0:15:17I was raised not far from the farm that we're sitting on right now.

0:15:17 > 0:15:20I've never seen it... I've seen it be dry.

0:15:20 > 0:15:24I've never seen it be dry for this length of time, you know.

0:15:24 > 0:15:27Never have seen anything like this at all.

0:15:29 > 0:15:32'And it just keeps getting worse.

0:15:34 > 0:15:39'Matt recorded this raging dust storm on his camera phone.'

0:15:39 > 0:15:41WIND BLOWS

0:15:43 > 0:15:47Just a reminder how dry we are

0:15:47 > 0:15:50and the condition that our land is in.

0:15:54 > 0:15:58'This dust storm was so huge it made the local news -

0:15:58 > 0:16:01'55 miles away.'

0:16:01 > 0:16:05- REPORTER:- Look at this incredible video, folks.

0:16:06 > 0:16:12I have never, ever seen anything like this before.

0:16:19 > 0:16:21This is where we live,

0:16:21 > 0:16:25and this is what we're in for until we get some moisture.

0:16:25 > 0:16:29It's gonna take a pretty significant rain event.

0:16:29 > 0:16:33You know, we need moisture and we need a bunch of it

0:16:33 > 0:16:36before we can do something to this land.

0:16:39 > 0:16:43'It's now officially the worst drought on record here.

0:16:47 > 0:16:51'It's fast becoming like the dust bowl of the 1930s,

0:16:51 > 0:16:55'which forced thousands people off their land.'

0:16:55 > 0:16:58Let's jump to the weather lab and take a look.

0:16:58 > 0:17:02The storm system is departing...

0:17:02 > 0:17:09'Local weatherman Ron Roberts, who's been at KAMC for over 30 years

0:17:09 > 0:17:13'hasn't been able to forecast rain for nearly all of 2011.'

0:17:13 > 0:17:17..What does all the blue mean? It's a freeze warning...

0:17:17 > 0:17:19We are seeing an incredible drought.

0:17:19 > 0:17:24This is the worst drought in climate history for this region.

0:17:24 > 0:17:26Only four inches of precipitation.

0:17:26 > 0:17:31The worst drought before this - eight inches about 70 years ago.

0:17:31 > 0:17:35That should give you a pretty good idea of how severe this is.

0:17:35 > 0:17:38We've never had a drought like this.

0:17:40 > 0:17:44'It's yet another example of a weather record being broken.

0:17:44 > 0:17:46..pets out there in the morning...

0:17:46 > 0:17:49'It doesn't make forecasting the weather any easier.'

0:17:49 > 0:17:53I think this has been one of the toughest years to forecast.

0:17:53 > 0:17:57It is a drought, but everybody wants the drought to end.

0:17:57 > 0:18:00"When's it going to rain?"

0:18:00 > 0:18:06There's more pressure during a drought to know what they need to do.

0:18:14 > 0:18:17'The stakes couldn't be higher.

0:18:23 > 0:18:26'Trying to get to the bottom of this

0:18:26 > 0:18:29'is one of the world's leading climate scientists.

0:18:32 > 0:18:38'Professor Katharine Hayhoe has a more than academic interest in figuring out what's happening.

0:18:38 > 0:18:42'She lives and works in west Texas.'

0:18:42 > 0:18:45What we are experiencing ourselves,

0:18:45 > 0:18:49in the places where we live our day-to-day lives,

0:18:49 > 0:18:53is changes in the average conditions that we're used to.

0:18:53 > 0:18:57One of the first things we're seeing is changes in our extremes.

0:18:57 > 0:18:59We're seeing global weirding.

0:19:01 > 0:19:05'Global weirding is a phrase she helped popularise.

0:19:05 > 0:19:09'One of the clues to the weirding of the west Texas weather

0:19:09 > 0:19:12'lies right under her feet.'

0:19:12 > 0:19:15Here's some west Texas dirt, good dirt,

0:19:15 > 0:19:19even though it's blowing away like sand - it's just very dry.

0:19:19 > 0:19:22We're below 99% below average right now -

0:19:22 > 0:19:25so far below average we can't measure how dry it is.

0:19:29 > 0:19:32'As the soil becomes drier and drier,

0:19:32 > 0:19:35'the drought gets worse and worse.

0:19:35 > 0:19:39'That gets amplified because there's no moisture left in the soil

0:19:39 > 0:19:41'to evaporate into rain.

0:19:44 > 0:19:47'But the weird thing about the weather in west Texas

0:19:47 > 0:19:51'is that the year before this record-breaking drought,

0:19:51 > 0:19:55'these bone-dry fields were awash in rain.

0:19:56 > 0:20:01'So much rain that it broke all records.

0:20:01 > 0:20:07'Two record-breaking years back-to-back is unheard of in this part of the world.'

0:20:07 > 0:20:11..the dew points are going to be a little higher...

0:20:11 > 0:20:16'We have 100 years of climate history in Lubbock.'

0:20:16 > 0:20:22In those 100 years we've never had this steep oscillation from one year to the next.

0:20:22 > 0:20:27Something is impacting our natural variabilities we have every year.

0:20:32 > 0:20:36'Over the years, the weather here naturally swings between wet

0:20:36 > 0:20:38'and dry.

0:20:38 > 0:20:42'But the swing has never been this extreme -

0:20:42 > 0:20:46'rewriting the record books in the space of 12 months.

0:20:46 > 0:20:49'So how can it be record-breaking wet AND dry

0:20:49 > 0:20:52'at virtually the same time?'

0:20:52 > 0:20:58Our planet has warmed by almost one degree Celsius over 100 years.

0:20:59 > 0:21:02A tiny change in temperature.

0:21:02 > 0:21:04How could that make a difference?

0:21:04 > 0:21:10That temperature change, in and of itself, makes no difference to our lives.

0:21:10 > 0:21:13It makes a huge difference to what we're used to.

0:21:20 > 0:21:24'The weather here has all the hallmarks of global weirding.

0:21:26 > 0:21:29'It may not rain as often

0:21:29 > 0:21:31'or as regularly,

0:21:31 > 0:21:35'which makes droughts possible.

0:21:36 > 0:21:39'But when it does rain...'

0:21:39 > 0:21:41THUNDER BOOMS

0:21:41 > 0:21:43'..it's heavier

0:21:43 > 0:21:46'and more intense.'

0:21:51 > 0:21:53One of the changes we've seen

0:21:53 > 0:21:58is that the average humidity of our planet has increased by 4%.

0:21:58 > 0:22:01Warmer air holds more water vapour.

0:22:01 > 0:22:06So, on average, our atmosphere is 4% more humid

0:22:06 > 0:22:09than it used to be 30 or 40 years ago.

0:22:09 > 0:22:12What does this mean for us in west Texas?

0:22:12 > 0:22:17Our humidity's 10%, probably, so we don't feel that so much here.

0:22:17 > 0:22:21But what happens is there's more water vapour in the atmosphere.

0:22:21 > 0:22:25So when storms come through, there's more water to pick up and dump.

0:22:25 > 0:22:29CLAP OF THUNDER

0:22:30 > 0:22:33'It's these storms, or lack of them,

0:22:33 > 0:22:38'that trigger the extreme dry and wet weather in west Texas.

0:22:38 > 0:22:43'In the future, scientists expect this pattern of drought and flooding

0:22:43 > 0:22:46'to be played out across the planet.

0:22:50 > 0:22:54'It's the small change in average temperature that's behind

0:22:54 > 0:22:58'the predicted increase in some extreme weather events.

0:23:02 > 0:23:06'Scientists believe it's all a question of balance.

0:23:09 > 0:23:12'As the Earth struggles for climate stability,

0:23:12 > 0:23:16'the weather begins to get extreme.

0:23:17 > 0:23:19'And weird.'

0:23:20 > 0:23:23Our planet's a really complex place.

0:23:23 > 0:23:26So as we increase the temperature of our planet,

0:23:26 > 0:23:33we are changing the dynamics of our atmosphere, the way our weather systems move across the country.

0:23:33 > 0:23:37We're changing... Our sub-tropical zones are expanding.

0:23:37 > 0:23:41Our dry areas of the world are growing.

0:23:41 > 0:23:45We are changing how water gets distributed around our planet.

0:23:45 > 0:23:50Places that are dry are getting drier. Places that are wet are getting wetter.

0:23:50 > 0:23:53Extremes are getting stronger in both directions.

0:23:56 > 0:24:00'Whether this warming is natural or man-made,

0:24:00 > 0:24:04'as the vast majority of scientists believe...

0:24:06 > 0:24:09'..it's triggering global changes.

0:24:09 > 0:24:13'And they are expected to play out in Britain.

0:24:18 > 0:24:23'This year's government report on climate change risk

0:24:23 > 0:24:27'says we are likely to see more flooding on the one hand,

0:24:27 > 0:24:30'and longer drier spells on the other.

0:24:33 > 0:24:39'The record-breaking rains in Scotland last year

0:24:39 > 0:24:44'and the worst spring drought ever in parts of eastern England

0:24:44 > 0:24:46'could be a taste of things to come.

0:24:49 > 0:24:53'But the intriguing question is the effect it might have been having

0:24:53 > 0:24:55'on our winters.

0:25:00 > 0:25:05'As Christmas 2009 approached, Britain started to shiver.'

0:25:05 > 0:25:09Yeah, it could be a record-breaking cold night tonight...

0:25:09 > 0:25:13'The cold went on, day after day.'

0:25:13 > 0:25:16..temperatures are going to plunge as the day goes on...

0:25:16 > 0:25:20'It was the coldest winter for 30 years.

0:25:22 > 0:25:26'Just a year later, records were being broken again.

0:25:28 > 0:25:34'December 2010 was the coldest for over 100 years.'

0:25:34 > 0:25:38..brought to a standstill as heavy snow continues to fall...

0:25:38 > 0:25:40'The weather was so brutal,

0:25:40 > 0:25:45'Heathrow Airport was closed at one of the busiest times of the year.'

0:25:45 > 0:25:49..the temperature's set to plummet even further...

0:25:49 > 0:25:51'But how was this possible

0:25:51 > 0:25:57'when the world was supposed to be getting warmer, not colder?

0:26:01 > 0:26:05'The British weather is so complicated, has so many variables

0:26:05 > 0:26:10'that scientists believe that really understanding what was going on

0:26:10 > 0:26:12'was well nigh impossible.

0:26:14 > 0:26:18'But that didn't deter the weather experts at the Met Office.'

0:26:23 > 0:26:27The view in my research group is that we shouldn't give up on this

0:26:27 > 0:26:33because there are key pieces of this puzzle that may be predictable.

0:26:33 > 0:26:36It's our job to squeeze as much predictability

0:26:36 > 0:26:39out of the climate system as we can,

0:26:39 > 0:26:42so that we can advise people about the possibility of extremes.

0:26:45 > 0:26:49'There's a number of clues to unravel in this mystery.

0:26:51 > 0:26:55'They lie buried away in the Arctic...

0:26:56 > 0:26:59'..in the long history of the sun...

0:27:01 > 0:27:06'..and, possibly, the contents of this case.

0:27:13 > 0:27:16'This is a Stradivarius violin.'

0:27:16 > 0:27:20PLAYS MELODY

0:27:30 > 0:27:33'They are the most expensive violins in the world.

0:27:33 > 0:27:37'They're worth so much because they have a unique sound.'

0:27:41 > 0:27:46They have an incredible singing quality and also incredible depth

0:27:46 > 0:27:48and richness.

0:27:48 > 0:27:52I think they reach closer than any instrument to the human voice,

0:27:52 > 0:27:54which touches people.

0:27:57 > 0:28:03'The body of this violin has a remarkable connection to the weather.

0:28:03 > 0:28:07'Stradivarius violins are defined, in part,

0:28:07 > 0:28:11'by the exceptionally fine-grained wood they're made from.

0:28:11 > 0:28:15'This violin was made in 1721,

0:28:15 > 0:28:18'nearly 300 years ago.

0:28:18 > 0:28:23'The comparison with the grain of a 20th-century tree is startling.

0:28:25 > 0:28:31'Intrigued, scientists in America have conducted a series of tests,

0:28:31 > 0:28:36'which seem to suggest that the unique sound of the Stradivarius

0:28:36 > 0:28:38'is down, in some ways,

0:28:38 > 0:28:41'to the fine-grained wood they're made from.'

0:28:41 > 0:28:46I think that's extremely interesting. That's fascinating.

0:28:46 > 0:28:49I have thought about the quality of the wood,

0:28:49 > 0:28:52but not particularly the closeness of the grain.

0:28:52 > 0:28:54It does make sense.

0:28:54 > 0:28:58A lot of the violins from the golden period of Stradivarius

0:28:58 > 0:29:01have this very tight grain.

0:29:03 > 0:29:08'Whatever the truth about why the Stradivarius sounds so beautiful,

0:29:08 > 0:29:12'the fact is, trees grow slowly in the cold.

0:29:12 > 0:29:15'So the closer the grain,

0:29:15 > 0:29:18'the colder it was.

0:29:21 > 0:29:24'The fine grain on this instrument

0:29:24 > 0:29:28'is evidence that the climate at the time was freakishly cold.

0:29:28 > 0:29:33'But what caused this bout of extreme winters 300 years ago?

0:29:36 > 0:29:42'Could the same thing be responsible for the record-breaking winters of the last few years in Britain?

0:29:56 > 0:29:59'Solar scientist Mike Lockwood

0:29:59 > 0:30:04'went looking for clues in the most obvious place.

0:30:06 > 0:30:08'The sun.

0:30:13 > 0:30:18'The sun's energy exerts the most important influence on the Earth's climate.

0:30:18 > 0:30:24'It defines the seasons, creates weather patterns

0:30:24 > 0:30:27'and drives the oceans' currents.

0:30:28 > 0:30:32'And it's what was happening to the sun 300 years ago

0:30:32 > 0:30:39'that's brought him to the River Thames and the crucible of British science.'

0:30:41 > 0:30:45We're just coming up to Greenwich on the river here.

0:30:45 > 0:30:49Greenwich is a really important place in the history of science.

0:30:49 > 0:30:53It was the first ever purpose-built laboratory,

0:30:53 > 0:30:56built to solve the longitude problem.

0:30:56 > 0:30:59But they did other things as well.

0:30:59 > 0:31:01They observed the sun.

0:31:01 > 0:31:04They made a great sequence of data

0:31:04 > 0:31:07that's incredibly useful for understanding the sun.

0:31:17 > 0:31:19'Hidden away in the dusty archives

0:31:19 > 0:31:23'were tantalising clues that would help Mike understand

0:31:23 > 0:31:26'what was happening to our nearest star.

0:31:31 > 0:31:34'Because 300 years ago, men of science

0:31:34 > 0:31:39'were carefully observing the face of the sun.

0:31:45 > 0:31:48'The records show

0:31:48 > 0:31:53'that they were mystified by something they hadn't seen before.

0:31:53 > 0:31:59'The sun's spots, which they had known about for years,

0:31:59 > 0:32:03'seemed to have unexpectedly vanished.'

0:32:03 > 0:32:10Initially, it was thought this was because people weren't looking properly at that time.

0:32:10 > 0:32:14As more and more observers' records were found, it became quite clear

0:32:14 > 0:32:17that wasn't the case, there just weren't spots there.

0:32:17 > 0:32:21People carried on looking for sun spots for 50 years,

0:32:21 > 0:32:24despite the fact they hardly ever appeared.

0:32:24 > 0:32:30Those records are invaluable because they tell us about the state of the sun 300 years ago.

0:32:40 > 0:32:43'Sun spots are important

0:32:43 > 0:32:48'because scientists now know that they can affect the British climate.

0:32:50 > 0:32:53'The sun's spots, shown here in white,

0:32:53 > 0:32:56'come and go on an 11-year cycle.

0:32:56 > 0:32:59'When there are no spots,

0:32:59 > 0:33:01'when solar activity is low,

0:33:01 > 0:33:05'there is a reduction in the amount of ultraviolet light

0:33:05 > 0:33:07'hitting the Earth.

0:33:13 > 0:33:17'Low solar activity has the potential to disrupt the jet stream

0:33:17 > 0:33:21'and the flow of warm air over Britain,

0:33:21 > 0:33:26'allowing the wind to blow cold winter air from the east.'

0:33:30 > 0:33:34Our work suggests that, statistically,

0:33:34 > 0:33:40if you have low solar activity you will get more of these cold winters.

0:33:40 > 0:33:44It seems to be a phenomenon that's very much prevalent in Europe

0:33:44 > 0:33:48but not really so significant anywhere else.

0:33:50 > 0:33:55'But 300 years ago, the sun's spots didn't just vanish for a few years

0:33:55 > 0:33:57'in the 11-year cycle.

0:33:57 > 0:34:01'They disappeared for two generations.

0:34:03 > 0:34:11'The impact on Britain's winter weather was recorded by 17th-century weathermen all over the country.

0:34:11 > 0:34:13'This period coincided

0:34:13 > 0:34:18'with a series of exceptionally cold winters in Britain.

0:34:18 > 0:34:23'The Thames froze over and frost fairs were held on the river.

0:34:25 > 0:34:31'The period from 1650 to 1700 has become known as the Little Ice Age.

0:34:38 > 0:34:41'In fact, the coldest winter ever recorded

0:34:41 > 0:34:44'was in 1683-84.'

0:34:47 > 0:34:49It's interesting to see the care

0:34:49 > 0:34:54with which things are recorded, but also the colourful language people use

0:34:54 > 0:34:56that we don't use nowadays.

0:34:56 > 0:35:02"Profound cold" is wording that we can't use in a modern scientific paper,

0:35:02 > 0:35:05but actually means quite a lot.

0:35:09 > 0:35:13'So why did the sun's spots disappear for 50-odd years?

0:35:13 > 0:35:19'To answer that question, Mike had to go back even further in time,

0:35:19 > 0:35:23'back before the beginning of civilisation.

0:35:25 > 0:35:30'One of the best places to get that long view of the history of the sun

0:35:30 > 0:35:33'is in ice.

0:35:34 > 0:35:38'He and his fellow scientists analysed ice cores

0:35:38 > 0:35:41'because they contain a signature

0:35:41 > 0:35:47'of what's been happening to the sun over thousands of years.'

0:35:50 > 0:35:54We can effectively look back in time.

0:35:56 > 0:36:00Roughly speaking, there are 20 to 30 grand maxima

0:36:00 > 0:36:04and grand minima in the 9,000 years that we can look at.

0:36:07 > 0:36:09'So what the ice showed

0:36:09 > 0:36:11'was something nobody could have predicted.

0:36:14 > 0:36:16'The sun had a secret rhythm.

0:36:18 > 0:36:21'As well as an 11-year time frame,

0:36:21 > 0:36:24'it also operated on a much longer timescale -

0:36:24 > 0:36:27'the grand solar cycle,

0:36:27 > 0:36:31'averaging every 300 years or so.

0:36:31 > 0:36:35'And Mike Lockwood's ground-breaking research

0:36:35 > 0:36:39'helped explain what was happening in the 17th century.

0:36:39 > 0:36:44'Because that was a time of a grand solar minimum,

0:36:44 > 0:36:48'where UV light would be at its lowest.

0:36:48 > 0:36:50'Not just for years,

0:36:50 > 0:36:52'but decades.

0:36:52 > 0:36:56'And that would create the conditions to allow the wind

0:36:56 > 0:36:58'to blow from the east -

0:36:58 > 0:37:01'leading to frost fairs

0:37:01 > 0:37:06'and the production of beautiful violins.

0:37:08 > 0:37:11'Could that help explain the recent cold winters?

0:37:11 > 0:37:16'Have we reached another grand solar minimum?

0:37:16 > 0:37:19'The answer was a convincing...

0:37:20 > 0:37:22'..no.'

0:37:25 > 0:37:30We seem to be coming out of a grand maximum of solar activity.

0:37:30 > 0:37:34And we will, past experience tells us, go into a grand minimum.

0:37:34 > 0:37:38It's just a question of how soon. It could be as little as 40 years.

0:37:38 > 0:37:41It could take a couple of hundred years.

0:37:41 > 0:37:45But the long-term record from cosmogenic isotopes tell us

0:37:45 > 0:37:49that it will, eventually, go back into a grand minimum again.

0:37:53 > 0:37:59'We now know for sure that it wasn't the grand solar cycle that was responsible for Britain

0:37:59 > 0:38:03'shivering through two record-breaking cold winters.

0:38:07 > 0:38:10'Of course, the end of the regular 11-year cycle

0:38:10 > 0:38:14'combined with other natural weather factors, played a part

0:38:14 > 0:38:16'in these record-breaking winters.

0:38:16 > 0:38:20'But some experts didn't think that was enough.

0:38:21 > 0:38:23'Something was missing.

0:38:32 > 0:38:35'Over the last few years,

0:38:35 > 0:38:40'climate scientists from around the world have been trying to figure out

0:38:40 > 0:38:42'what might have been happening.

0:38:46 > 0:38:51'One of the leading lights of that group is Dr Adam Scaife.

0:38:53 > 0:38:56'He and his team have been accumulating and analysing

0:38:56 > 0:38:59'mountains of weather data.

0:39:02 > 0:39:07'Weirdly, they believe the answer to the problem lies in the Arctic.

0:39:10 > 0:39:13'Even weirder,

0:39:13 > 0:39:17'they think the warming of the Arctic may be holding the key.

0:39:19 > 0:39:24'But how can it be getting warmer in the Arctic, yet colder in Britain?'

0:39:27 > 0:39:30If you melt the Arctic ice,

0:39:30 > 0:39:34you might think that would give warmer conditions further afield.

0:39:34 > 0:39:36For example, over Europe.

0:39:36 > 0:39:39It is, indeed, true that when you reduce the ice

0:39:39 > 0:39:43that lets lots of heat out of the ocean, so in the Arctic,

0:39:43 > 0:39:47you see several degrees of warming in the lower part of the atmosphere.

0:39:48 > 0:39:53'And there's little doubt that it's been getting warmer in the Arctic.

0:39:53 > 0:39:58'In the last ten years, the sea ice has reached record low levels.

0:39:58 > 0:40:03'According to the Met Office's sophisticated computer models,

0:40:03 > 0:40:07'a hotter Arctic doesn't equal a warmer Britain.'

0:40:07 > 0:40:11That warming that's happening over the Arctic is not seen over Europe.

0:40:11 > 0:40:16The reason is because the circulation changes, the wind changes.

0:40:16 > 0:40:19When you remove the Arctic ice,

0:40:19 > 0:40:21the winds become more easterly.

0:40:21 > 0:40:25The winds start to circulate from east to west around the Arctic

0:40:25 > 0:40:29and south of the Arctic, and that dominates the response over Europe.

0:40:29 > 0:40:34So instead of warming in the winter over Europe when the ice is depleted

0:40:34 > 0:40:39we get cooling because we're dragging the air from Siberia over northern Europe.

0:40:44 > 0:40:49'They're still trying to understand the mechanism that produces this effect,

0:40:49 > 0:40:55'but when you add this new factor to variables like the sun's solar cycle

0:40:55 > 0:40:59'what happened to our winters starts to make sense.

0:41:01 > 0:41:05'And perhaps what's even weirder is that as the world gets warmer,

0:41:05 > 0:41:08'some bits of it can get colder.'

0:41:08 > 0:41:14Of course, Europe and the UK is only one region of the globe.

0:41:14 > 0:41:18There are many other regions, and when you average those up

0:41:18 > 0:41:20you still see warming.

0:41:20 > 0:41:25So the fact that Europe is cold and the US is cold at the same time,

0:41:25 > 0:41:31is balanced by the fact that Canada and the Mediterranean tend to be milder in those winters.

0:41:31 > 0:41:36When you integrate up this change in the winds, the extra easterly winds,

0:41:36 > 0:41:40when you average it over the whole globe, it cancels out.

0:41:40 > 0:41:43Global warming can continue unaffected,

0:41:43 > 0:41:48but the regional temperatures over, say, UK and Europe,

0:41:48 > 0:41:52can go down, at least for a few years, as the globe warms up.

0:41:52 > 0:41:58Even though, in the end, global warming will, of course, win, if we continue on that trend.

0:42:04 > 0:42:07'This is why, as the world gets warmer,

0:42:07 > 0:42:11'it makes sense to talk about the weather getting weirder.

0:42:13 > 0:42:18'It affects different parts of the planet in different ways.

0:42:21 > 0:42:26'But every extreme weather event isn't an example of global weirding.

0:42:27 > 0:42:29'Freak weather still happens.

0:42:31 > 0:42:36'The difference is, in the future, there's likely to be more of it.

0:42:39 > 0:42:42'The dice are now being loaded.'

0:42:47 > 0:42:50Dice are a great way to picture

0:42:50 > 0:42:53what climate change is doing to our world.

0:42:53 > 0:42:57We always have a chance of rolling that six, whether it's extreme heat

0:42:57 > 0:43:01or record-setting rainfall, or the longest drought on record.

0:43:01 > 0:43:03That could happen naturally.

0:43:03 > 0:43:06What climate change is doing is, one by one,

0:43:06 > 0:43:10taking those sixes, those weather extremes,

0:43:10 > 0:43:12and adding a few more to the dice.

0:43:12 > 0:43:18So now our chances of a record-breaking heatwave are twice what they used to be.

0:43:18 > 0:43:23Our chances of record-setting rainfall events have increased,

0:43:23 > 0:43:26relative to the last 50 years.

0:43:26 > 0:43:30We'll never know if that six we roll, that extreme weather event,

0:43:30 > 0:43:33is the natural one or the climate change one.

0:43:33 > 0:43:38But we do know that the chances of rolling those sixes are increasing.

0:43:41 > 0:43:45'More extreme weather appears to be the new normal.

0:43:45 > 0:43:49'So what, if anything, can we do about it?

0:43:53 > 0:43:57'One strategy is on display here, in Holland.

0:43:57 > 0:43:59'It's not exactly visible.

0:44:03 > 0:44:06'Half the country lies below sea level,

0:44:06 > 0:44:10'which makes it vulnerable to weather extremes.

0:44:13 > 0:44:16'Not surprisingly,

0:44:16 > 0:44:20'they've come up with a few clever solutions to the problem.

0:44:25 > 0:44:28'This car park in the city of Rotterdam

0:44:28 > 0:44:31'might look like any ordinary car park,

0:44:31 > 0:44:35'but hidden away in the bowels of the building

0:44:35 > 0:44:40'is an unusual approach to dealing with the consequences of weather weirding.

0:44:48 > 0:44:51'There's nothing to advertise where is is.

0:44:51 > 0:44:55'Access is through this nondescript door.

0:45:16 > 0:45:21'Inside, it looks like a series of interlinked concrete bunkers.

0:45:23 > 0:45:28'This man has created something that's dark, cold and functional.'

0:45:28 > 0:45:31What we saw in the last years

0:45:31 > 0:45:35is that we had an increased amount of heavy rainfall events.

0:45:35 > 0:45:38With these heavy rainfall events,

0:45:38 > 0:45:42the centre of the city has water problems.

0:45:44 > 0:45:48'If the weather gets weird in the streets above,

0:45:48 > 0:45:52'it can be dealt with at the press of a button...

0:45:57 > 0:46:01'..that pulls a plug in the sewer system

0:46:01 > 0:46:05'and the excess floodwater is siphoned off down here.

0:46:14 > 0:46:19'For Daniel Goedbloed, the man who designed and built these bunkers,

0:46:19 > 0:46:23'they're an essential element in the city's defence

0:46:23 > 0:46:25'against the new weather extremes.'

0:46:31 > 0:46:35We had streets flooding, basements flooding.

0:46:35 > 0:46:39We had the canals more or less overflowing.

0:46:39 > 0:46:45So we calculated how much extra storage we needed in the city centre

0:46:45 > 0:46:49just to face this problem of extra rainwater.

0:46:58 > 0:47:04'This space is big enough to deal with ten million litres of water,

0:47:04 > 0:47:08'enough to cope with the worst flood in a century.

0:47:10 > 0:47:15'The whole project cost 11 million euros,

0:47:15 > 0:47:17'about ten million pounds.

0:47:17 > 0:47:22'But for Daniel and Rotterdam, that's a small price to pay

0:47:22 > 0:47:25'for the level of protection it brings.'

0:47:27 > 0:47:32Rainfall events are going to increase, there are going to be more heavy showers.

0:47:32 > 0:47:35Over a year, we're going to have less rainfall,

0:47:35 > 0:47:41but it's going to come in shorter amounts of time, in heavier rain showers.

0:47:41 > 0:47:45So we have to deal with this rain water in a short amount of time.

0:47:45 > 0:47:50Then you can just let it flow here quickly, and store it.

0:47:53 > 0:47:55'After the flood,

0:47:55 > 0:48:00'the stored water can be released back into the sewer system,

0:48:00 > 0:48:03'and the tanks can be flushed and cleaned -

0:48:03 > 0:48:09'ready to deal with the worst of the weather patterns of the future.

0:48:31 > 0:48:35'But Rotterdam's adapting to a wetter future

0:48:35 > 0:48:38'in even more ingenious ways.

0:48:38 > 0:48:42'They're so concerned about flooding, that they're making plans

0:48:42 > 0:48:45'not just to continue living by the water,

0:48:45 > 0:48:50'they actually think it's possible to live on it.

0:48:52 > 0:48:55'This futuristic looking building

0:48:55 > 0:48:59'is floating in the city's docklands area.'

0:49:01 > 0:49:03It's a pilot,

0:49:03 > 0:49:09and a sort of showcase to show to the people floating constructions.

0:49:09 > 0:49:14Floating living and working is possible. It's really stable.

0:49:14 > 0:49:19I think in Rotterdam, in the heart of the city, there's an opportunity

0:49:19 > 0:49:23to make new city parks

0:49:23 > 0:49:27with a nice way for living and working possibilities.

0:49:29 > 0:49:33'Most of the world's biggest cities are built near water.

0:49:35 > 0:49:39'The Dutch think their plan to fill this dockland area

0:49:39 > 0:49:41'with a raft of these buildings

0:49:41 > 0:49:46'could be a blueprint for urban living in the future.'

0:49:49 > 0:49:54We are now planning in this harbour a new floating community.

0:49:54 > 0:49:57The city has announced a competition

0:49:57 > 0:50:01for international architects to think about

0:50:01 > 0:50:04this new floating community.

0:50:04 > 0:50:08It could be a sort of new Venice.

0:50:13 > 0:50:18'That's all well and good for small rich countries like Holland,

0:50:18 > 0:50:24'who can afford to build the infrastructure to cope with the future of weather extremes.

0:50:25 > 0:50:30'However, there is another solution that's more about brain than brawn.

0:50:43 > 0:50:45'An example of that strategy

0:50:45 > 0:50:50'had its finest hour when the future of the world was in the balance.

0:50:54 > 0:50:58'In a quiet corner of the Met Office library hangs a map,

0:50:58 > 0:51:03'probably the most famous weather map in the world.

0:51:03 > 0:51:06'It's the forecast for D-Day.

0:51:06 > 0:51:11'It played a critical role in the outcome of the Second World War.'

0:51:11 > 0:51:14The weather forecast might well have won the war.

0:51:14 > 0:51:19They were trying to predict, within a window of a few days,

0:51:19 > 0:51:22with the right amount of moon, the right tides,

0:51:22 > 0:51:26as to whether the weather would be flat enough for the landings.

0:51:26 > 0:51:29The forecast was for this ridge of high pressure

0:51:29 > 0:51:33to move in across the western part of the Channel.

0:51:33 > 0:51:38As you can see, it hadn't got quite as far in as was expected.

0:51:38 > 0:51:40So conditions weren't perfect,

0:51:40 > 0:51:44but they knew that if they didn't go at the beginning of June,

0:51:44 > 0:51:46they'd have to wait another month.

0:51:52 > 0:51:59'If this forecast was wrong, the consequences could have been catastrophic.

0:52:02 > 0:52:06'So it's no exaggeration to say that the D-Day weather forecast

0:52:06 > 0:52:11'didn't just help to change the course of history,

0:52:11 > 0:52:14'it also saved countless lives.

0:52:18 > 0:52:25'And getting an accurate forecast is vital in our new weather future,

0:52:25 > 0:52:29'because the hope is prediction will lead to protection.'

0:52:31 > 0:52:33The point of the weather forecast,

0:52:33 > 0:52:36when you get down to the nitty-gritty,

0:52:36 > 0:52:40is getting extreme weather events - heavy rainfall, high temperatures -

0:52:40 > 0:52:43the forecasts for those spot-on

0:52:43 > 0:52:47so people can get correct warnings in the right timescales

0:52:47 > 0:52:51so they can take precautions to save themselves, if they need to.

0:52:56 > 0:53:01'And the one thing forecasters have managed to improve over the years

0:53:01 > 0:53:05'is the accuracy of the forecast.

0:53:05 > 0:53:11'The five-day forecast is now as accurate as the one-day forecast was 30 years ago.

0:53:11 > 0:53:17'That could be vital in a future predicted to be dominated by extreme weather events.

0:53:20 > 0:53:25'The technological development that's driven the improved accuracy

0:53:25 > 0:53:29'floats thousands of miles above us.

0:53:29 > 0:53:31'Satellites.'

0:53:31 > 0:53:35We've got so much more information because of all the satellites.

0:53:35 > 0:53:40You need to know what's going on globally to get a good forecast

0:53:40 > 0:53:44of what's going to happen in the UK for the next five days.

0:53:44 > 0:53:49You can't do it without global coverage. Satellites have given us that global coverage.

0:53:51 > 0:53:54'Satellites provide huge amounts of information

0:53:54 > 0:53:57'about the world's most extreme weather events.

0:54:01 > 0:54:04'But making sense of them...

0:54:05 > 0:54:07'..requires one of these.

0:54:12 > 0:54:16'This is the Met Office's computer behemoth.

0:54:20 > 0:54:23'It only came online three years ago.

0:54:24 > 0:54:29'It can do 100 trillion calculations a second.

0:54:32 > 0:54:35'That's the equivalent of 100,000 PCs.

0:54:35 > 0:54:41'It makes it one of the biggest number crunchers in the world.'

0:54:45 > 0:54:47We need that power.

0:54:47 > 0:54:52We've got millions of observations coming in every day.

0:54:52 > 0:54:58It's also trying to calculate what the weather's going to be like on that grid around the globe

0:54:58 > 0:55:01up to five days ahead and beyond.

0:55:01 > 0:55:04We use the same model that we do our day-to-day forecasts on

0:55:04 > 0:55:08for our climate forecasts hundreds of years into the future.

0:55:11 > 0:55:16'And that computing power could be a vital weapon in the coming struggle

0:55:16 > 0:55:18'with global weather extremes.

0:55:21 > 0:55:27'Allowing the Met Office to develop new kinds of weather forecasts.'

0:55:30 > 0:55:33The big new idea in climate science

0:55:33 > 0:55:37is not just to look at the distant future 100 years ahead.

0:55:37 > 0:55:41That's very important. It tells us what road we're on.

0:55:41 > 0:55:46But in the near term, on planning timescales years or months ahead,

0:55:46 > 0:55:48when people make real decisions,

0:55:48 > 0:55:53the big thing is to increase the skill of the forecast on those timescales.

0:55:53 > 0:55:58Maybe give some warning weeks or months ahead of impending extremes.

0:55:58 > 0:56:02Perhaps even unprecedented extremes. That's what we're trying to do.

0:56:11 > 0:56:17'The new science of weather extremes highlights the profound links

0:56:17 > 0:56:20'between our climate and the way we live.

0:56:22 > 0:56:28'It also underlines just how vulnerable our civilisation is.'

0:56:31 > 0:56:35We're playing a kind of dangerous game with the climate.

0:56:37 > 0:56:40The last 7,000 or 8,000 years

0:56:40 > 0:56:43has been a remarkably stable climate.

0:56:43 > 0:56:48Very unusual in the last two million years of Earth's climate history.

0:56:48 > 0:56:52It was during that time that human civilisation developed.

0:56:52 > 0:56:55So we should be clear about something.

0:56:55 > 0:56:59Climate change, whether it's natural or we're doing it,

0:56:59 > 0:57:01is no danger to the planet.

0:57:01 > 0:57:05The planet has gone through much worse. The danger is to us.

0:57:05 > 0:57:11Our civilisation developed in a very unusually stable climate,

0:57:11 > 0:57:15and it's very well adapted to that climate.

0:57:15 > 0:57:20We change it - again, whether the change is natural or man-made -

0:57:20 > 0:57:24it's going to cause dislocations and problems.

0:57:29 > 0:57:33'However we choose to deal with global weather extremes,

0:57:33 > 0:57:38'be it protection or prediction, one thing is clear -

0:57:38 > 0:57:41'the world has changed.'

0:57:43 > 0:57:46The past is no longer a guide to the future.

0:57:46 > 0:57:52The average conditions that we grew up with. It's not the same as 30 years ago.

0:57:52 > 0:57:56Events that used to be random and extreme are becoming more frequent

0:57:56 > 0:57:58and more severe.

0:57:58 > 0:58:02We're living in a different world than the one we grew up in.

0:58:02 > 0:58:04We have to adapt to those changes.

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