Weatherwatch: rising levels of anxiety

Danger of coastal flooding might make sensible people think twice about building houses in vulnerable places, let alone nuclear power stations

Back in 2012 a document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showed that the Environment Agency was warning that 12 out of the UK’s 19 nuclear sites were in danger of coastal flooding and erosion because of climate change. Among them was Hinkley Point in Somerset, one of the eight proposed sites for new nuclear power stations around the coasts.

That was before the increasing volume of melting of the Greenland ice cap was properly understood and when most experts thought there was no net melting in the Antarctic.

Related: Melting ice sheets are hastening sea level rise, satellite data confirms