British thunder: not lightening up any time soon, says ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ documentary
If you're feeling a bit down in the doldrums, ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Four's new series of films on British weather and how it will change due to climate change probably won't brighten your day - but it's riveting stuff all the same.
The first episode is all about rain and how torrential it's going to get when climate change kicks in. Indeed, if you've been gleefully earmarking your umbrella and wellies for disposal in anticipation of global warming, listen up:
'With climate change, the one prediction we can make with real confidence is that we expect rainfall to become heavier', narrates one scientist. 'When it rains, we're going to get more large precipitation events because the warmer air will be able to hold more water vapour.'
All in all, it looks like that old British idiom 'it never rains but it pours' is going to take on a whole new, rather more literal meaning in the future.
We're also shown the true shape of a raindrop (don't believe everything you see in cartoons), terrifying footage of the flash floods which swept through Boscastle in 2004, why living in the small farming village of Seathwaite is like a Scottish pop band ('wet, wet, wet', according to one resident) and what it's like to stand inside a 'typical British rain cloud' (yes, that's right, clouds have nationalities too).
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