date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 14:19:30 +0000 from: Mary Pallister subject: Royal Society flood meeting: draft press release to: t.osborn@uea, m.hulme@uea Tim/Mike Please find enclosed the latest draft of the press release I'm planning to put out to coincide with Tim's talk at the Royal Society on 21 November. I would be grateful for any thoughts/comments. I am in touch with the Royal Society press office who will also be promoting the research being presented at the meeting, so the embargo date may change a bit, but I'll keep you posted. Tim - are you around on the Monday and Tuesday of that week if journalists would like to talk to you? Kind regards Mary --- 19 November 2001 Embargoed until: 0900 (GMT) 21 November 2001 Heavy Rainfall on the Increase With at least one episode of flooding already this autumn, new research from the University of East Anglia shows that one of the main contributors to flooding, three or more days of heavy rainfall in a row, is on the increase. Heavy rainfall in winter, over multiple days, has increased between 50 and 60 percent over the last forty years. Dr Tim Osborn of UEA's Climatic Research Unit, analysed rainfall data over the last forty years and found that the number of days of heavy rainfall in winter has been increasing, although it has been decreasing in summer. "The number of days of heavy rainfall in winter is steadily rising, and increasingly these are coming in 3 or more day stretches. This is very significant in terms of flood risk," said Dr Osborn. "The floods last autumn were the worst on record and our analysis shows that this corresponds to a very high number of heavy rainfall days, particularly 3 or more days in a row. The changes we are seeing in the pattern of rainfall in this country are likely to have been influenced by climate change, though natural climate variations probably also play a role." Dr Osborn will be presenting the results of his research at "Flood Risk in a Changing Climate", a Royal Society discussion meeting being held on Wednesday 21 November. Ends For further information please contact Mary Pallister in the UEA press office: tel: 01603 593007, e-mail: m.pallister@uea.ac.uk Notes to Editors: 1. Rainfall intensity is measured on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is 'drizzle' and 10 is 'heavy'. 2. A graph illustrating the increase in heavy rainfall events is available in high resolution electronic format, please contact Mary Pallister in the UEA press office for a copy. Specifically it shows the number of days per year that come at the end of a 5-day sequence of heavy rain (post-1961 yearly values shown as bars, pre-1961 decadal values shown as black/yellow curve) 3. The rainfall data used in Dr Osborn's analysis runs from 1961 to 2000 4. Media are warmly invited to attend the Royal Society meeting, to register your interest please contact Liz Brodie in the Royal Society press office, tel: 020 7451 2575, e-mail: press@royalsoc.ac.uk. More information about the Royal Society can be found at www.royalsoc.ac.uk 5. The research presented will be published as a paper, co-authored by Dr Mike Hulme of the UEA-based Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Series A (June 2002). -- +++ Mary Pallister science communications officer University of East Anglia Norwich NR4 7TJ dir tel: 01603 593 007 dir fax: 01603 259 883 e-mail: m.pallister@uea.ac.uk web: www.uea.ac.uk