Your assignment is to prepare and submit a paper on responsibility for protecting the environment in sheffield. June was the wettest summer in Sheffield since 1776 when rainfall record taking began. The total amount of rainfall in the United Kingdom for the period between May and July 2007 was 387.6 millimetres (Walayat 2007). This was a shocking and high reading when compared to the previous annual average reading of just 186.3 millimetres (Walayat 2007). The extreme rainfall that fell in July as a result of a steady stream of low-pressure systems that were tracked over Sheffield. The wet summer also caused below average sunshine levels. This reduction in sunshine led to reduced evaporation rate, which is usually at its highest during summer. The massive amounts of rainfall and the reduced rates of evaporation caused the worst flooding seen in Sheffield in one and a half centuries. By definition, a jet stream is a fast-flowing, relatively narrow jet of air that is normally located eleven kilometres high in the Earth’s atmosphere. This jet stream is steering and generating weather systems over Europe. Jet streams are also helpful in determining the location of low and high air pressure acting on the surface of the earth.
The anomalous wet weather of June 2007 can be traced back to the jet stream that had driven a large scale weather pattern that had steadily persisted over Europe. A persistent train of waves with a trough located close to Europe steered the Atlantic weather systems towards the United Kingdom. This train of waves moved slowly, which resulted in more prolonged rainfall than in situations where the weather systems are more mobile. The trough to the west of the United Kingdom directed unusually moist air. This is because the trough passed over a more southerly track than normal, thereby passing over warm sea temperatures. .
