Given the complexity of what drives the climate, it is almost impossible to say categorically whether this is true or not. But the statements helped to deflect from more concrete causes of flood damage like building houses on flood plains. Dissolved minerals Good written records of rainfall only extend back about 200 years - too short a time to prove a fundamental shift. Now, however, a hidden history of our climate has been discovered in some of the UK's caves. Most caves are formed when rainwater dissolves limestone rock.
Underground rivers can open up huge caverns where water continually drips through the roof.
Sometimes, the sediments tumble down the cave wall like a petrified waterfall. At Pooles Cavern in Derbyshire, it was discovered that the stalagmites grow faster in the winter months when it rains more. Precipitation history Alan Walker, who guides visitors through the caves, says the changes in rainfall are recorded in the stalactites and stalagmites like the growth rings in trees. You get these growth spurts and these can be seen by the growth rings which are found in the stalagmites. Stalagmites from a number of caves have now been analysed by Dr Andy Baker at Newcastle University.