 Now, last year, the UK recorded its highest ever temperature of 40.3 degrees Celsius. And on the news recently, we've seen devastating floods, droughts and wildfires worldwide. My next guest is Hannah Cloak, a specialist in extreme weather and professor of hydrology at the University of Reading. She has appeared on TV, including in the Panorama episode Wild Weather, Our World Under Threat. And she was a subject of the Life Scientific on Radio 4 in 2021. Welcome, Hannah. It's lovely to be here. When did you first discover your fascination with water and geography? I wonder if I was actually just born into water because, you know, when I was a little girl, I was just fascinated by it. And we used to go on holiday to Devon to see my grandparents every summer. And I just used to throw myself into the sea and, you know, go paddling in Dartmoor rivers. I just spent hours and hours in the water. So I think it was there from when I was very, very small. I'm sure that my mom and dad influenced me as well. That's amazing. I love that. But then water can also be quite a devastating force on the world. So could you talk a little bit about that and, you know, the research that you do now? So I do love water. I love the sound of rain. I love flinging myself into rivers. But I'm very aware that, you know, these things can turn into monsters. So heavy rainfall, rivers can turn fluddy. And they will absolutely devastate communities. So it's really interesting being very fascinated by water and how it moves around the planet. But you're being very aware of how dangerous it can be. And that's really why I do what I do. So I'm interested in flood forecasting and warning people, making sure people can get out of the way of dangerous floods. Now, it seems like some scientists perhaps are a bit reluctant to kind of pinpoint the cause of some of these extreme weather events as being because of the climate crisis. What's your response to that? Yeah, it's an interesting question because it's always flooded. So it's flooded since before humans existed. And we've always had heat waves and there's always been forest fires. So it would be wrong to say that every forest fire is caused by climate change. What it does is it makes it more likely. So we see more of them, sometimes they're more frequent, sometimes they're more intense. So floods can cover more land. They can be more violent because of the fingerprints of climate change. So it's really important to distinguish that because we can't just go around saying, oh, this flood is definitely because of climate change. But we can say that it's more likely because of climate change. And the fingerprints of climate change are there, which means that we need to take it seriously. So it's almost like there's the effect that we're having on the planet is to make things a little bit more riskier in the sort of natural disaster regard. Yeah, that's exactly it. The risk changes that factor. If it's going to happen more often, it's going to be worse. Yeah. And how good are we at predicting the next flood or the next extreme event like that? We've got some really good models now. So we have huge computer models of the Earth system that can put together how the atmosphere moves around and what's happening on the land surface and in our rivers. And we're actually pretty good now at saying whether a natural hazard like a fire or a heat wave or a flood is going to happen, even sometimes two or three weeks ahead. So is that enough? Is two or three weeks ahead, I guess, enough to respond to that adequately? So it depends what you're trying to do. So if you're trying to get people out of the way, then you need at least a week sometimes to prepare all of that stuff in advance. We only tend to hear about things a day in advance. Somebody says, you know, actually, tomorrow it's going to rain really hard. You need to, you know, get out of your house. But behind the scenes, people are moving around, putting equipment in the right place, going on alert. And with this kind of, I guess in the longer term, if I'm, you know, from my perspective as structural engineer, I've been involved in, you know, urban planning and looking at cities and so on. How can we use the kind of modelling that you do to maybe better design where human beings decide to settle down? Yeah, humans have a tendency to live in very dangerous places. We like water, right? We want to live next to rivers. It's really pretty living next to the river. And, you know, it's really functional. In London, it's, you know, really nice place to live. People want to live there. It's really expensive. But it can be very, very dangerous indeed. So we have this legacy of people living in really, really dangerous places. But we can use the same types of model that we use when we're forecasting whether a flood is coming next week. We can use that to work out what the risk is of any types of floods coming along. We can say, you know, these zones are dangerous zones. Do not build here. Perhaps even move people out of the way. And then these places, you know, there is still some risk. So you need to adapt your homes or your businesses. And what kind of time skills are you able to make these predictions on now? So when we're thinking about an upcoming flood, so it's going to flood tomorrow or next week, we can say with some confidence whether that flood is going to happen. But when we look a long term and we think about our changing climate, we can see how likely those types of floods are to happen in the future. And some of the things we're most worried about actually do flash floods. Those ones that are really difficult to predict in the short term. And, you know, sometimes they come along in an hour or something. A big thunderstorm happens and it sweeps through the streets or or along a river. But we know that they are getting more likely in the future. And warming climate means we're we're holding more water in the atmosphere, heavier rainfall, more intense rainfall, more flash floods. What about the scene kind of more globally? We've I guess we've talked a little bit more specifically at the UK, perhaps. What what's happening on the worldwide basis with flood prediction? Some of the most vulnerable places in the world are desperately in need of much better flood forecasting and warning systems. A lot of those places, you know, they don't have enough funding to really get to grips with some of these global models. So it's about working together with partners, perhaps in Mozambique and Bangladesh, places that are very filled with floods often. And a lot of people die every year from these types of floods. So the more that we can support those countries and provide kind of the infrastructure and work together with them to help them get the warnings to the people so they can get out of the way of those floods, the better. Yeah, seems like it's it's one of those things where, you know, the more we come together, the better our responses can be and so on. So quite a big challenge. It's a big challenge. It is a big job. The world is a very big place. Yeah. And we do have global models and they do provide like flood forecasts and floods, heat wave forecasts. But actually getting that message to the people on the ground, that's really, really tough. So you can only really do that at the local level. So, you know, you're moving from global and, you know, environmental models to actually psychology at the local level. And that's a big chain of chain of events completely. So now I'm going to ask you a completely different question, which is poetry. Apparently, I've heard that you've written some poetry. There's something about the brain, isn't there, doing arts and science together? I mean, is that something you quite enjoy? Yeah, I think as a scientist, I was a bit wary about it, thinking that there's a bit unscientific. Let's not do that. You know, people will laugh at me. But actually opening up that different way of thinking actually generates new ideas. And you actually start to think in a different way as well and communicate in a different way. So I work with now with artists, musicians across the board, do a lot of work with museums. And it's brought a lot and much richer way of communicating things like flood risk. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like, I mean, I know this, but, you know, arts and sciences, if we need to talk to each other, then we can learn new things from each other, which which is brilliant. Yeah, and not be frightened, not be frightened to do so. 100%. So that's that's really great. And is there something that you would be devastated to lose if it got swept away in a flood? It's really important actually to focus on that when you're trying to communicate to people whether they're at flood risk and what's actually going to happen to them. Because if they just think about, like, how much rain is falling or how high the river is, it means nothing to them. But if you pick something that's really precious to someone, so for me, that's my grandmother's music box. You know, she gave it to me. Sadly, she's passed away. It means a lot for my childhood and it sits on my shelf. And I always imagine, you know, how would I feel if that got swept away in a flood? And to me, that's the real meaning of being at flood risk. Yeah. And I guess it's a it's a way to explain the risk to other people, like you said, that, you know, it might feel like a very distant. Yeah. And they have to imagine it. So they have to be able to imagine those floodwaters in the house putting their possessions at risk, perhaps putting their family at risk. And you need to help that imagination along. So those types of precious objects are really helpful to do that. Just to change scales a little bit again, but the welcome trust, which some of our viewers may be familiar with, has recently started talking about how climate change is a health crisis. You know, what are your thoughts on that? There are so many links between climate and health. I don't think I could cover them all now. Well, I pick a couple. I mean, last summer, we saw absolutely intense heat in the city. We went over that 40 degree barrier and it was terrifying. And it meant, you know, thousands of people died. And that, you know, that's pretty severe. And that's in the UK. We're not even thinking about places on the planet where it's absolutely inhospitable to live. So heat is a giant killer. It's a silent killer as well. So we don't it's not like a roaring floodwater coming through your house. You know, it really picks the vulnerable people as well. So that's an obvious example of where climate and health are so intricately linked. Thank you so much for chatting to me. It's been fascinating to hear about really what's a major problem worldwide. But also, you know, like you said, the psychology of the family or the person or the community that then has to respond to that on a local level. So I really appreciate your time.