If you are looking to support industries that have a promising future then it might be sensible to put your money into those that make umbrellas, raincoats, wellies, buckets, mops and flood barriers. All the signs are that future rainfall will be heavier than previously if the recent evidence is anything to go by.

Most of the world has taken a pounding this year, the warmest on record, and every continent has received record rainstorms in some measure. The list is impressive, as Australia demonstrates, with Queensland receiving over three inches in less than an hour, and then south, through New South Wales, and into Tasmania they all passed their average winter rainfall in less than a third of the time.

South East Asia normally expects intensive monsoon rainfall but this year it was extreme with Sri Lanka soaked by more than three inches in an hour, whereas north west Pakistan had over twelve inches in two days. South China didn't escape receiving almost five inches a day for five June days, and 18 inches in one Bejing July day.

Records were set across the USA with West Virginia getting rain totals that are only expected once every thousand years. With more than seven inches in three hours and the state receiving a quarter of its annual rainfall in one day, there was severe flooding and disruption.

Oregon had over eight inches in a week, and joining it in the May record book was Texas, with a remarkable daily record of almost 17 inches for the 26th, while Louisiana received a spectacular 27 inches in the month of May. For comparison keep in mind the Bradford annual total of 34 inches, with just 26 in Leeds.

Argentina endured 14 inches of rain in two April days, and most western European countries had the wettest spring for over a century, with Paris receiving over two and a half inches in one day. And back home the Lake District had a foot of rain dumped on it in 24 hours, while London had the average rainfall for June in just a few hours.

This intensive, heavy, and often local rainfall, is only to be expected in a warming world. The atmosphere holds more water vapour as it warms, as those pegging out washing well know, and this means more active and turbulent weather systems.

The extra energy needed to evaporate the water, now lurking as latent heat, is poised to be released once the rising air cools and the water vapour condenses back to rain, so it all becomes remarkably more unstable and violent, meaning more storms.

It's very simple - more CO2 means a warmer, wetter, wilder world.