Mostly. Though there is a core set of places that flood and are up to 2000 years old. York, Tewksbury, Cockermouth, Carlisle, etc. The list even includes ones that haven't flooded recently like Coventry. In other areas there are little villages sprinkled over vast areas that almost entirely flood. Those places invariably have an abbey or a cathedral that rarely, if ever gets flooded, along with a chunk of old buldings that are free from the deepest inundation. There are also a few old buildings that get flooded along with the newer lot. I suspect that initially people knew that those sections were dodgy but built anyway because they needed access to the river and/or were eager to be part of the town centre regardless. Floods would have been intermittent any way. The monks often diverted rivers and the current river course is not necessarily the original. What is now at risk might once have been safe.

In trying to model Coventry's terrain, I noticed that the river doesn't track the lowest parts of the inner city. On the contrary it cuts through a deep channel that is older than 1650. Relatively recently almost all of the central part has been covered over. There are photos of flooding and the river finds its old route. One area that is captured in some of the earliest sketches show ponds but are now shops and the bus depot called Pool Meadow. There's a clue. If it was wet once it will flood again. There are old records that note that the river ran more strongly at a point even further back than the records. Land use change or change in rainfall?

TinyCO2, have you ever noticed that the churches and cathedrals, especially those built over 500 years ago, tend not to flood. Obviously the moral high ground was adopted a long time ago, and the peasants had to leave their hovels, and seek sanctuary in the House of God, when the rivers rose.

In these enlightened times, only the wealthy can afford to buy modern houses that flood.

Radical Rodent

Try this.

Couple of months?

Try about three years. CO2 is not a well mixed gas.

Radical Rodent

Or this.

During the floods of the Somerset Levels, the village of Muchelney was surounded by water but the church and the ruins of the abbey were high and dry. Originally it would have been permanently surrounded by marsh which was why it was revered as the only dry ground. Ely is the same.

Michael hart

Couple of months within hemispheres, couple of years between hemispheres. Sounds reasonable.

Michael hart

What experimental design would you suggest?

TinyCO2, do you think the Medieval builders had a premonition, or Message from God telling them where to build masonary structures, knowing that Mann made global warming was going to happen, or did they not build elsewhere, because every idiot worth a village, knew that flooding happened, and where?

How many old churches do you go down steps (or accessible ramp) to get into? They always seem to be steps 'up'. It is possible I suppose that churches were built on land that rose, heavenwards due to plate tectonics, or something, but I am sure there must be a simpler reason.

michael hart - it's supposed to be 7% increase for every degree of temperature (C). So not all of the 7% is man made even if all the warming since 1950 was from AGW.

Golf Charlie

Ely was surrounded by marsh until the Fens were drained. They still call it the Isle of Ely.

Blaming CO2 for flooding when dredging, subsidence, levee maintenance, land use changes, and urbanization in flood plains are all occurring is at best evasive. It is as deceptive as Polynesians on a money hunt seeking compensated for sea levels when their atolls are growing. The opportunity costs of the climate social madness is corrosive to more and more areas of our lives.

One thing that will have made the flooding of old towns worse is that early builders didn't always build on both sides of a river. By building and then embaking both sides, you reduce areas that could have been sacrificed without risking the town.

I think the Met Office would be derelict in its duty if it suspects that current rainfall is a phase but caused by natural cycles, albeit made a bit worse by warming. They talk about CO2 loading the dice but that should be a steadily increasing element. Natural phases could make higher rainfall more likely for decades or even hundreds of years. It's worth remembering that global temperature swings hugely over 12 months. The tiny changes from year to year are only visible because they are turned into anomaly figures.

This gives an idea how the northern, southern and both hemispheres react.

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/clip_image004_thumb1.jpg?w=641&h=434

Note how current global and northern hemisphere temperatures are not high this time of year (almost at the lowest). Even with our record breaking warm temperatures we only move back a bit in the annual cycle.

EM 3:43. Absolutely! You accept some history as being true!

I am not a religious person, but Ely has an interesting history, and I hope to visit someday. The architecture of churches and cathedrals is fascinating, representing the the best and most ostentatious technology of the day. The reason so many took so long to build, is that they kept on running out of wealthy benefactors, and bits kept falling down, due to poor design. What we see to day is a triumph of design by trial and error. Castles on the other hand, had to be built quick, and strong, to fulfil their defensive stronghold purpose, so hey never tried anything too radical .

Similarities with climate science, are a matter of faith.

Golf Charlie

I grew up a few miles away. You should visit Ely. The cathedral is a marvel. Make sure you climb the tower if your legs are up to it. You can see about 20 miles in all directions outside and look down the full height of the building inside.

Walk around the town and you will see that all the old buildings are on top of the hill. Only the newer buildings are lower down.

No flooding.nowadays. Pumps, drainage channels and sluices work to keep the whole region from flooding.

EM, It is a place I would like to visit! It just isn't really on the way to anywhere I have needed to go recently.

I have spent time with family and friends over many years in parts of Suffolk and Norfolk, and have sailed in around the Blackwater in Essex. With qualifications in Engineering and Surveying, East Anglia demonstrates many different landscapes that have benefitted from man's intervention for over a 1000 years.

Providing improved drainage has been great for agriculture, and the wealth to build Cathedrals. Coastal erosion is something that can be slowed, not stopped. The Tide Mill at Woodbridge is a good example of sea levels not having changed very much.

Some properties continue to subside, not through clay deseccication, but the continued decomposition and compaction of the organic (peat) content of the subsoils.

One former Suffolk MP has now been branded a liar in court by a Judge, for jumping on the global warming meal ticket. How former MP John Selwyn Gummer sees his future will be interesting.

Some people regard East Anglia and the Fens as being flat and boring. They are not. They are interesting, because they are flat. There is not much archaeology from pre-Roman times, no hills to build forts on, but since then, fascinating.

Paul Homewood does the homework on whether December was the wettest ever.

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/01/06/wettest-december-not-according-to-the-england-wales-series/

For those who can't wait - the answer is 'no'. So, what unnatural event happened for the other 19 wetter Decembers? I swear the next argument is going to be 'CO2 makes weather sticky so that it clumps together into more dangerous blobs'.

El Nino, the wobbly jetstream, the North Atlantic Glider Gun and climate change are all influencing this Winter's weather.

That's my point, meteorologists know this, but in the past the climate scientists and their camp followers have jumped no every weather event as proof of global warming. Not only have the various scientists I heard not blamed global warming, they've explicitly refused to do so.

I have no idea where I suggested "muzzling" are you doing your usual trick and having a conversation where you make up the words of your interlocutor so you can make killing points in the discussion?

TinyCO2, I think rising CO2 levels do make some sub-species of man go a little bit 'irrational', and it does cause some unusual types of brain activity, leading to heightened sensitivity, about sensitivity, to anything they may feel even a little bit sensitive about. According to peer reviewed propaganda, 97% of climate scientists suffer from this condition, withdrawal of all funding is the only guaranteed treatment, plus a complete change in career.