British Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited the flooded areas of Gloucestershire this week, where he contradicted meteorologists who said the floods were “down to bad luck, not global warming.”

Brown said the heavy rains and floods in Britain over the past month are related to climate change. “Like every advanced industrialized country, we are coming to terms with the issues surrounding climate change,” he said.

“We’re looking, if you like, at 21st Century extreme weather conditions,” he said.

Do you ever see a photo or hear a story about a situation you know you should be preparing for but you haven’t? When we complained a couple of days ago about 30 days of temperatures over 100 degrees, my brother-in-law countered with floods in his town in southwest England. He’s pretty low key. “But, we’re all right.”

So, we check the BBC for more news of floods, and it’s so much worse than he let on. Throughout the southwest, the midlands, Yorkshire — anywhere there is a river to flood, it seems, England is awash.

Stiff-upper-lipped meteorologists aren’t saying this is due to global warming. The jetstream shifted south this year, carrying far more rain that the rivers can handle. Rather than going to the furthest north of Scandinavia as usual, it’s blowing right through Britain and on to northern Europe.

In most of the stories I’ve read, people are waiting for provisions to be brought to them. The water has been turned off in some places, so bowsers, giant drinking water tanks, have been planted throughout towns. Most people are being oh-so polite and not hoarding food, but could you please pump out the local Co-op Foodstore so I can buy a pint of milk?

The BBC has included reader photos from all over the flooded regions. All of the photos taken together are shocking. People don’t seem to be too worried that such flooding could be the wave (so to speak) of their future. My parents-in-law are only a few feet above sea level. The rise of the sea and other flooding in Britain is generally on my mind. Are they preparing? Theoretically, yes. I want to hear about the practical details.

UPDATE: It’s much worse in the past couple of days.  My in-laws are leaving town because they have no water.  They can get water from the giant bowsers.  It will probably be about 2 weeks before they return to their jobs full-time.  They have it much better than people in many towns in the southwest of England, though.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report from January predicted a conservative 28 - 43cm rise in sea level within the next 100 years.

This week, a scientist points out that the UN report doesn’t consider rapid advances in science. The assumption was that polar ice would stay frozen, keeping the sea level rise minimal. The UN consensus report may be too conservative. Even the conservative projections create a picture of faster change, “more devastating than previously thought.” Experience of the past two months doesn’t bear out the assumption of minimal sea level rise.

“All indications are that it’s going to get faster,” said Eric Lindstrom, head of oceanography at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Will you be a climate refugee? If sea level rise is inevitable, you probably want to know how high the water will go. I do. Several of my family live only a few feet above sea level, so I searched far and wide (from my screen) for the best sea level rise map available.

Firetree’s Mr Strange looked for a map, didn’t find one, then created an overlay of sea level rise over Google Maps. Because, it is estimated, the melting of the Greenland ice shelf would result in a 7m rise, the map is parked at that level, but there are controls to change the level from 0 - 14 meters. It’s a pretty cool hack.

But. . .

What if our conservative estimates are too comforting? If the polar ice caps melt, we could see a 20-meter rise. Well, WE wouldn’t see it, but our 13th-Great-Grandchildren might in 500 years. The flood map only goes to 14 meters maximum, but maybe Flood Map 2.0 will include the worst case scenario.

• Gorilla of Sea Level Rise, Living on Earth. Listen to the public radio program.
• Sea Level Rise, Greenpeace.  Includes likelihood of 13m rise.
• Flooding Oahu, University of Hawaii.  Includes 70m maps.  Bye, bye Honolulu.
• The Canary Project is collection “persuasive visual evidence of climate change.”