Complaint To BBC Over Happisburgh Report

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-63822899

I have now formally complained to the BBC about this article.

Here is my complaint:

The report states”But punishing weather conditions linked to climate change have eroded so much of the village’s soft sandy rock that her house is now the last one before the cliff edge. “

In fact coastal erosion has been taking place in Happisburgh for thousands of years. There are well established historical links for this fact, for instance:

http://happisburgh.org.uk/ccag/history/

The British Geological Study in their 2006 study on Happisburgh erosion states:

“It is likely that the Norfolk cliffs have been eroding at the present rate for about the last 5000 years”

Coastal erosion at Happisburgh, Norfolk

The recent increase in erosion is due to fact that sea defences built in the 1950s, which worked well, have lately fallen into disrepair.

Your claim of “punishing weather conditions” also does not stand up to scrutiny. The Met Office have recently said that “There’s no evidence of a trend in storminess because of climate change [in the UK]”:

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2022/2022-provisionally-warmest-year-on-record-for-uk

And the Met Office’s own charts clearly show that the frequency and intensity of storms in the UK has actually declined since the 1990S:

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.files.wordpress.com/2023/01/image-1.png

Sea levels on the East Coast have been rising at a steady rate since the mid 19thC. There is no evidence of recent acceleration.

https://www.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=170-053

About half of the sea level rise along the Norfolk coast, about 1mm a year, is caused by the land sinking, something which has been occurring since the Ice Age:

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/image-61.png

Nowhere in the article is there any mention whatsoever of any of the above facts.

Consequently readers will have been badly misinformed, and led into thinking that coastal erosion is all due to modern, man-made global warming.