Wet 10 Water Debate

Monday 4th March 2013

Our Livery is a member of the Wet 10 (actually now the Wet 13) group of Livery Companies, who share a common concern for the long term health of the water environment. The debate was chaired bt Colin Drummonfdof the Water Conservators and the eminent princial speakers were John Hirst, the Chief Executive of the Met Office and Paul Leinster, his counterpart at the Environment Agency. The topicality of the subject after the apparent extremes of 2012 attracted over 130 people, including Sheriff Nigel Pullman and some ten Masters. Our Immediate Past Master, Fiona Adler, played a key role in organising the event.

From the Met Office, we heard encouragingly that their 5 day forecast in th UK is now as good as their daily forecast was 40 years ago and that we can continue to expect the Gulf Stream to provide us with a more favourable climate than an island at our latitude has any right to expect. Less happy was the comment that long term thinning of the arctic ice may cause the jetstream to wander about more, as it did last year. And, thinking about last year,the Environment Agency concluded by wondering whether we would be looking back on it in 25 years time as a dry one or a wet one.....