Green Group discussion
Climate Change
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Flooding
Mod
While snow can be cleared off town streets, what do you do with all that snow? Finland is trying to cope.
"Road maintenance crews in Helsinki have already collected and dumped 80,000 lorry loads of snow this winter, while more snow is still on the way.
During average winters, snow removal teams fill up between 40-60,000 truckloads of snow.
The current situation prompted the city's snow removal team to figure out how to deal with the extra white stuff.
Helsinki earmarked 24 million euros for snow maintenance this winter, but that is not going to be enough, according to Pekka Isoniemi, the city's maintenance unit chief. He said an additional four or five million euros will be needed to do the job.
The workers transport snow to nine dumping sites, but these are starting to fill up, according to Isoniemi.
The city also continues to dump snow into the sea, off the island district of Hernesaari, however the practice has raised widespread environment-related questions and criticism."
https://yle.fi/news/3-12330962
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https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2022/03...
"Deadly floods have swept Australia's east coast, stranding residents on bridges and rooftops and forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes.
Flood warnings were in effect for dozens of areas across the states of Queensland and New South Wales, where a week-long "rain bomb" has dumped a metre of water on some areas in a week.
Several waterways have already burst their banks or broken through levees, inundating towns and forcing residents to flee or seek safety on higher ground.
Nine people have died and more than a thousand people have been rescued. Authorities have warned that more fatalities are likely.
...
"Near the town of Grafton, buildings were submerged almost to roof level, roads were washed away and cattle roamed abandoned.
Further south in Sydney, residents endured another day of torrential downpours, and were warned to brace for "major flooding".
Australia has been on the sharp end of climate change, with droughts, deadly bushfires, bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef and floods becoming more common and more intense as global climate patterns change."
I have been watching the Sky news weather and several days recently, Perth, on the other side of Australia, has been the warmest spot on the planet.
The polar regions might have the biggest changes, going from frozen to melted. Areas that are closest to the poles might also see the biggest changes. Maine, the farthest northern state on the east coast has seen the highest reduction in winter weather. Temperatures are warmer and snowfall is much less than it used to be.
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Flooding reported above in Australia is moving towards Sydney, with major evacuations. The wildlife is also at risk.
"Taronga Zoo, located along Sydney Harbour, prepared for an influx of injured wildlife from torrential rainfall and flooding.
The first fear was for young wildlife, small animals - including echidnas and bandicoots - and birds unable to escape surging floodwaters.
Heavy downpours can make birds' feathers so waterlogged they are unable to fly, a spokeswoman told AFP.
As the floodwaters recede, concern will turn to the animals living in fresh water, including platypuses.
Across New South Wales, flood levels have climbed to the highest level in decades."
It is possible that the more extreme events being seen in limited areas could spread out as the amount of fresh liquid water added to the Earth's surface continues to increase.
Mod
Donna Mulvenna
"A big part of the attraction of editing is being able to work for a small niche publisher who defends nature and empowers communities through the power of story. There’s no denying editing for Stormbird is a ton of work. The press publishes a diversity of books by authors, scientists, activists, conservationists and more who all passionately communicate reverence, wisdom, and inspiration about our shared home—Earth. Assessing a manuscript from someone who’s out in the field fighting tooth and nail to save our wildlife and landscape isn’t a simple matter of thumbs up or thumb down. If the story fits the press—for e.g. a struggle of land defenders or a human relating to wildlife as kin—Stormbird commits to giving these writers as much editing help as they need. It’s the story the author is telling that is the core.
Having worked as an Editor for Stormbird since 2018, I now feel confident in saying ‘I am an Editor’. Editing puts me in the zone. And the type of stories Stormbird publishes, and the wise authors who tell them, offer me answers, comfort, and hope when faced with devastating lows.
Despite carrying-out exhausting fire preparation efforts in the decade preceding the Black Summer fires, Stormbird Press burned down. In the aftermath, our writers, editors, illustrators and more worked hard to get Stormbird Press back up on its feet, but we lost significant ground.
Then, just as we emerged from the bushfires with a plan, COVID-19 swept across to the world. Book stores closed their doors. Indie book sales plummeted. 2020 and 2021 were a slow, hard crawl.
The year 2022 was going to be a fresh start! How could it possibly get worse?
Then, my little sister, Leisa, an internationally renowned wildlife sculptor whose work some of you know, lost her home, gallery and workshop in the LISMORE FLOODS.
She’s no stranger to flooding. But she thought she was safe because her house was raised above the flood line. Like all floods before, she was well prepared.
At 4.30am on February 8, she phoned to say, "The water is still rising. It’s going to come into the house.” By 6am she was in a fight for her life as raging flood waters reached her waist. With only two boats available, the Emergency Service put out an urgent call for civilians to help. THANK YOU to the good Samaritan in a fishing boat who arrived at Leisa’s window to pull both her and her blue cattle dog, Gidget to safety. Others weren’t so lucky. People were trapped in roof cavities. Some were huddled on roof tops. And as we found out in the days that followed, lives were lost.
Like Stormbird Press in the Black Summer wildfires, my sister Leisa in the rain-bomb Lismore floods, and everyone reading this who has endured the pandemic, we’ve all been blindsided.
Climate change is magnifying threats such as flooding, wildfires, tropical storms and drought. This means more heat waves and shorter cold seasons for temperate latitudes. In subtropical and tropical latitudes, there will be wetter rainy seasons and hotter dry seasons. Coastal cities and islands will be threatened by sea level rise. The UN science community is yelling from the rooftops that these climate change impacts are escalating rapidly. No-one will escape unscathed. But it’s no longer enough to be ‘well prepared’. We have to adapt to a changing climate now."
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"Tens of thousands of Sydney residents have been told to evacuate their homes as severe storms and flash flooding inundated swathes of Australia's largest city.
The national weather bureau warned of "a tough 48 hours ahead" for Sydney, with 60,000 people subject to evacuation orders and warnings, and the city's Manly Dam beginning to spill.
Intense rainfall across Sydney flooded bridges and homes, swept away cars and even collapsed the roofs of a shopping centre and a supermarket.
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"State emergency services have been stretched thin as the torrential rain and intense storms continued into a second week - with flood warnings in place for the entire 2,000km coastline of New South Wales.
"It's very much the watery equivalent of the 'Black Summer' bushfires," emergency services spokesperson Phil Campbell said.
In the past week the scale of the damage to property and wildlife has been similar to those devastating bushfires, he said, which ravaged Australia's east for months in late 2019 and early 2020.
"We have also had a similar effect on communities in terms of dislocation with roads closed, infrastructure damaged, power outages," Mr Campbell said."
https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2022/03...
Mod
"Here in Brisbane, there's still a lot of clean up happening from the recent floods. It was a very intense week. We're lucky enough to live on a hill, which meant our house did not flood. It was sad to watch the city disappear under water around us though. Many houses, businesses, and roads were flooded. This led to food supply issues, school closures, and meant garbage trucks couldn't get in to collect rubbish. If there was ever a week we needed our bins to be collected, it was that week.
Why? Maggots.
I can't even type it without dry-retching. They're a bigger problem up here than I EVER would have anticipated. I also strongly suspect that the insects in Brisbane are on steroids, because they're enormous.
I digress.
The good news is, this week schools re-opened, supermarkets got vegetables delivered, and bread is back. Oh, and one of our bins got emptied. Thank goodness it was the maggot bin."
Mod
"Hundreds of residents across Sydney's south and south-west face a sleepless night as a number of evacuation orders are still active.
Key points:
Heavy rain is falling across the coast of NSW
Up to 300mm of rain is forecast for coming days
People are being urged to not drive through floodwaters
The most recent was issued just after 6pm for residents in parts of Camden.
They have been given until 10pm to leave their homes."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-0...
Mod
"At least 306 people have died after the heaviest rainfall in 60 years caused devastating flooding around the South African city of Durban.
That number makes the storm the deadliest in South African history, according to calculations by AFP. "
https://www.ecowatch.com/south-africa...
"The flooding began early in the week in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, Reuters reported. The extreme rainfall lasted three days, with some places seeing more than a foot of precipitation and others receiving six-months of rain in one day, CBS News reported.
“[T]he Province of KwaZulu-Natal experienced what is one of the worst weather storms in the history of our country,” the provincial government wrote on Facebook. “The heavy rainfall that has descended on our land over the past few days, has wreaked untold havoc and unleashed massive damage to lives and infrastructure.”
The rainfall led to mudslides that destroyed homes and bridges and blocked roadways, CBS News reported. The storm also downed 900 cell towers belonging to two major networks.
...
"The storm comes as a study found that the climate crisis made a series of southern African storms in the first part of 2022 wetter than they would have been otherwise, as BBC News reported. Within a six-week period, the region was inundated with three cyclones and two tropical storms."
Mod
https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2022/06...
"a string of devastating floods in Brazil that have killed hundreds of people in recent months, and which experts say are being aggravated by climate change.
The rains began last week but intensified over the weekend. Overnight Friday into Saturday, the rain that fell in some parts of Pernambuco was 70% of what would be normal for the whole month of May.
"We never saw so much rain fall in so little time," said 60-year-old Mario Guadalupe.
"I saw the landslide happen. First part of the hill gave way, then it was just a tsunami of mud. It nearly took out my house."
Weather-related tragedies are becoming a familiar script in Brazil. They tend to hit hardest in poor neighbourhoods, especially hillside favelas, or slums.
"Climate change could be responsible for the rise in extreme, violent rain that is being detected not only in Brazil but around the world," Jose Marengo, research coordinator at the National Center for Natural Disaster Monitoring and Alerts, said."
Mod
By studying Canaletto's paintings, a researcher was able to see back in time to before the official measures were installed.
https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/...
"“At high school I studied art and, of course, the work of Canaletto,” explains Dario Camuffo, researcher at the Institute of Atmospheric Science and Climate in Padua. “I learned how the artist used a camera obscura to create highly accurate views of Venice.”
A camera obscura is a precursor to a modern photographic camera. An image is projected into a darkened room or box via a tiny hole, allowing artists to trace the outline of a scene before painting the final work.
Canaletto’s use of the camera obscura, Camuffo suggests, helped the artist produce his highly accurate views of the city.
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"Look closely at the paintings of Canaletto and you will often see a brown-green line smudging the buildings, walls and steps facing the Grand Canal. This is algae, and it marks the canal's high tide level at the time.
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"“The buildings in Venice were built with waterproof basements made of white Istria stone. The floors above were built using bricks and mortar,” Camuffo says.
“Now the waterproof level is no longer high enough to withstand the high water level. The bricks become impregnated with salt from the sea water. When the air is humid, the salt draws in water. When the walls dry, the salt crystallises. This constant cycle is destroying the bricks and mortar of Venice.”"
There is a very big lesson to be learned from the Yellowstone flooding. Its nothing new, the situation has been around a long time. While it was an atmospheric river that pumped up the rainfall, it wasn't that much for most places. 1 to 2 inches, some had 3 inches. Even in Yellowstone the rain fall wasn't more than 2 to 3 inches. True the rain did come down very fast. But that wasn't what caused the major flooding. It was the rain falling on the unmelted snow pack. The snow pack melted instantly.
The lesson to be learned is that once it starts raining heavily in the extreme polar regions, the ice will melt overnight. There have already been isolated reports of thunderstorms in the Arctic, three times the rate since 2010. Thunderstorms are typically warmer than regular rain storms. Lightning has struck within 60 miles of the North Pole.
Yellowstone Flood
https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel...
Arctic Lightning
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/series-o...
Arctic Rain
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/14/world/...
Part of Kentucky got 6 to 8 inches of rain overnight. Said to be one of the worst storm flooding events in Kentucky.https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/...
Some places in Kentucky had rain falling at the rate of 5 inches per hour. That was the old rate for 1,000 year rain events.Another night of rain coming with more flooding and people still needing rescue. One county had 14 inches of rain over 48 hours and it was still raining.
Kentucky is still repairing damage done by tornados in Dec of 2021. The governor said it could take several years to repair the damage from the flooding.
It has become very difficult to tell people where it is safe to live in regards to sudden flooding. If these heavy rainfalls continue, people in flood prone areas will need to put their houses on stilts, like the people are doing who live on beaches.
At some point in time, more than likely after it has become obvious that storm damage is not being fixed in a timely manner, people will begin to realize that we are not calling the shots anymore.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/kentucky-h...
Mod
I don't know enough about the location to guess at localised causes, but some of the news reports contain information. I would associate Kentucky with bluegrass horse studs, racing, music and hills.
https://www.rte.ie/news/us/2022/0730/...
"Flooding unleashed by "epic" torrential rainfall swept through homes, washed out roads and pushed rivers over their banks, state authorities said.
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"The floods resulted from downpours of 13-25cm of rain that fell over the region in 24 hours, a deluge that may prove unprecedented in the region's record books, said William Haneberg, an environmental sciences professor and director of the Kentucky Geological Survey.
"It's a truly epic event," Mr Haneberg said.
The disaster came two weeks after rain-triggered flash floods inundated the riverfront Appalachian community of Whitewood in southwestern Virginia near the Kentucky border.
The region's steep hillsides and narrow valleys make it prone to flooding, but the increasing frequency and severity of rain-caused floods in the Appalachian region are symptomatic of human-induced climate change, Mr Haneberg said.
Flood events "are going to be more extreme and frequent, but it's hard to predict how extreme and how frequent they will bein the future", he said in an interview."
Mod
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Coal state.
Clare wrote: "I have been seeing the Kentucky reports too. Simply tragic. I don't know enough about the location to guess at localised causes, but some of the news reports contain information. I would associate..."
James Aura lives in Kentucky and wrote The Hurricane Code due to his concerns, eco-fiction.
It is still raining in Kentucky with more flash flood warnings. 1 to 2 inches of rain is expected today, perhaps more in isolated areas. The ground is supersaturated and the rivers are still full which means any rain can cause more flooding.Except for Wed and Thurs, the weather forecast is predicting scattered thunderstorms for eastern Kentucky over the next 2 weeks.
Mod
I don't know enough about the location to guess at localised causes, but some of the news reports contain information. I w..."
I hope you're okay Carolyn, your family isn't affected by any floods or fires?
Third 1,000 year rainfall rate in the past week. This time in Illinois. I call them 9 inch rains as that is what it used to take to cause massive flooding of the large midwest rivers 20 years ago. This time it was 8 to 12 inches in 12 hours. One area received 14 inches in 12 hours. 20 years ago a 9 inch rain storm covered a wider area but happened in fewer places.What was different this time was that the rural areas fared better than the city areas. The water run off was worse in St Louis because the land is much more heavily paved and concreted over so the land was not able to absorb the water.
The highways and main roads turned into rivers. They did drain fast but were totally impassable while flooded, trapping cars and trucks. The train system did not do so well. The flooded tracks and stations were damaged by the water and some might take up to 2 weeks to get back into regular running condition.
What is becoming glaringly apparent is that the current physical infrastructure of the built up areas are not able to handle the large rainfalls.
Some places are building levees and redesigning waterways to handle instant flood conditions. This shortsighted strategy only works if the rain happens for a limited time and then doesn't come back for awhile.
The same way hurricanes were deemed to not be able to get much bigger than they already were, they still managed to make the situation considerably worse by slowing down to a crawl, causing massive rainfalls that a faster moving storm would not be able to accomplish. They didn't have to get bigger to become worse.
The new storm scenario has the rain storms continue to develop for a period of a week or longer, instead of just one day. This saturates the land and fills the waterways thus enabling an ordinary storm to create a dangerous situation because there is no more room for anymore water.
Storm behavior is no longer linear or predictable. Recently there was a large storm just off the northeastern US coast that traveled south along the coast, parked a day at its farthest point, down in the southeast, and then started to travel in a northward direction back up the coast, past the point it originally started at. Fortunately the bulk of the storm stayed in the ocean but there is no reason for that to not happen every time. There was a lot of wind from the storm along the coastal areas before it made landfall.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ima...
Mod
Even in the "calm" upper Midwest, the storms are getting nastier, more frequent, and more disruptive. Scary times indeed.
It is flooding in Death Valley, making roads impassable for a while due to the flash flood damage. It didn't take much, 1.46 inches of rain fell, which is 75 percent of a years worth of rain. 3 or 4 foot diameter boulders were left on some roads. The area dried out as the water is not restricted by the land and just flows outward until it is gone. Washes can get several feet of water going through them and hillside erosion is common. The rain was from monsoon activity which rained over a large area of the southwest that normally gets monsoon activity.
It is similar to the situation of melting permafrost weakening the infrastructure of communities that relied on the ground staying frozen. The liquid water destabilizes the land.
In the desert areas, physical aspects of the land can be relied upon to stay relatively stable without much effort being made to change the landscape. When the normally dry sandy land gets inundated with water, a great amount of erosion immediately happens which changes the landscape such that roads that were simply laid out on the desert land, become unusable after too much rain falls on them. The sand loses it stability and sections of the sandy roadbed simply wash away.
If major structural changes aren't made and the rain continues, bridges need to be built, or the roads need to be relocated.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/flash-floo...
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https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2022/08...
"A New Zealand city devastated by flooding will take years to recover, its mayor said, as hundreds more homes were evacuated.
The Pacific nation has been lashed by wild weather with the Nelson-Tasman district on the South Island bearing the brunt after 75cm of rain reportedly fell over three days.
...
"New Zealand's South Island was bracing for another lashing of heavy rain, but other regions did not escape the extreme weather.
The nearby city of New Plymouth endured its wettest August day since records began with 10cm falling in 12 hours.
"More than a metre of rain has fallen causing significant flows down all rivers," said Taranaki Civil Defence controller Todd Velvin with flooding, road closures and fallen trees creating problems.
...
"Daniel Kingston, senior geography lecturer at the University of Otago, attributed the heavy rain to an "atmospheric river" - a narrow band of water vapour high in the atmosphere over New Zealand.
"It's safe to say that with respect to the influence of climate change, it is more than likely playing a role," he said."
Mod
When a hotel goes, there is less accommodation for emergency shelter. The poor have lost their homes and the middle class have temporarily been made homeless.
https://www.rte.ie/news/2022/0828/131...
""People were informed around three or four o'clock in the morning to evacuate their houses," rescue worker Umar Rafiq said.
"When the flood water hit the area we had to rescue children and women."
Many rivers in the area - a picturesque tourist destination of rugged mountains and valleys - have burst their banks, demolishing scores of buildings including a 150-room hotel that crumbled into a raging torrent.
Officials blame the devastation on human-driven climate change, saying Pakistan is unfairly bearing the consequences of irresponsible environmental practices elsewhere in the world.
Pakistan is eighth on NGO Germanwatch's Global Climate Risk Index, a list of countries deemed most vulnerable to extreme weather caused by climate change.
Exacerbating the situation, corruption, poor planning and the flouting of local regulations mean thousands of buildings have been erected in areas prone to seasonal flooding.
The government has declared an emergency and mobilised the military to deal with what Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman has called "a catastrophe of epic scale"."
"A New Zealand city devastated by flooding will take years to recover, its mayor said..."The damage that doesn't get repaired is slowly piling up around the world.
The areas getting rain are getting more and more rain. A meter of rain is a lot of rain. Will they be getting even more rain in the future.
The areas not getting more rain, and in fact getting less rain, will they continue to get less rain.
Will the tracks of heavy rain and no rain start to move around?
Mod
Pakistan is getting hit very hard by the current monsoon rain season. Their normal amount of rain by this time would be 5 inches. They have gotten 15 inches of rain so far and it is still raining.Since June 13th, over 1100 lives have been lost. The army and for the first time the navy, are being used to aid relief efforts. In some flooded areas there are no dry areas for helicopters to land.
One third of the country is flooded. 33 million people affected by the flooding and flood-damaged infrastructure includes more than 1 million houses either partially or fully destroyed, over 2,150 miles of road destroyed, 162 bridges gone and over 700,000 livestock lost.
Melting glaciers have also contributed to the huge runoffs. Pakistan has 7500 glaciers, the most for any non polar region.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/one-third-...
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Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle
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Who'd have thought?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...
"Recent severe rains in Death Valley that flushed debris across roadways, damaged infrastructure and carried away cars are being described by meteorologists and park officials as a once-in 1,000-year event.
The arid valley was pelted with roughly an inch and a half of rain on Friday, near the park’s rainfall record for a single day.
In this photo provided by the National Park Service, cars are stuck in mud and debris from flash flooding at The Inn at Death Valley in Death Valley National Park, Calif., Friday, Aug. 5, 2022. Heavy rainfall triggered flash flooding that closed several roads in Death Valley National Park on Friday near the California-Nevada line. The National Weather Service reported that all park roads had been closed after 1 to 2 inches of rain fell in a short amount of time. (National Park Service via AP)
The storm poured an amount of water equal to roughly 75% of the average annual total in just three hours, according to experts at Nasa’s Earth observatory. Hundreds visiting and working in Death Valley national park were marooned and all roads continue to be impassable, according to park officials.
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"Daniel Berc, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Las Vegas, described the deluge as a historic “1,000-year event”, with a 0.1% likelihood during a given year."
While this is nowhere near the scale of the Pakistan flooding, and the infrastructure is confined to that near one river in a park, the principle of unexpected extreme rainfall is increasing.
Mod
However, constant coal usage, oil burning and dirty vehicle exhausts in the Pakistan, Afghanistan and northern India regions is depositing soot on the Himalayan glaciers. Forest fires also contribute soot.
https://indiaclimatedialogue.net/2020...
"“We have vast grasslands in the area and during dry months like March and April, it is easy for fires to spread across the forest,” said Naveen Khandelwal, deputy director of the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve. He also noted that many farms surround the tiger reserve and, “when farmers burn crop residue, the fires sometimes spread to the forests also.”
The Pilibhit Tiger Reserve falls in the Terai Arc Landscape in the foothills of the Himalayas. It is one of the most fire-prone areas in the country.
...
Forest fires and crop burning, in addition to pollution due to emissions from other sources like coal-burning power stations, transportation and brick kilns, are causing high soot depositions in the Himalayas.
Black carbon, a component in soot that absorbs light more strongly than any other substance in the atmosphere is now settling over Himalayan glaciers and disturbing the principle based on which these glaciers have survived over centuries, namely that light-coloured surfaces reflect sunlight and darker coloured ones absorb it."
Everyone's responsible one way or another. It starts with everyone doing things that don't replenish what is being taken out of the natural world.
Mod
https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2022/10...
"More than 1.4 million Florida residents were still without electricity yesterday and two hard-hit barrier islands near Fort Myers - Pine Island and Sanibel Island - were cut off after the storm damaged causeways to the mainland.
Aerial photo and video show breath-taking destruction in Sanibel and elsewhere.
The causeway is seen broken and washed out, with one section covered by calm waters lit up with reflections of the sun.
In Fort Myers, a handful of restaurants and bars reopened, giving an illusion of normalcy amid downed trees and shattered storefronts.
Dozens of people sat out on terraces under a bright sun, drinking beer and eating.
Dylan Gamber, 23, said he had been waiting for two hours at a pizzeria to get food to bring home.
"It was kind of bad, but we made it through," Mr Gamber said.
"The roof of our house came off, a big tree collapsed across our vehicles, our yard was flooded, but other than that we were pretty good.
"As a community, we seem to be coming together and helping each other out."
In nearby Bonita Springs, Jason Crosser was inspecting the damage to his store.
"The water went over the whole building," said Mr Crosser, 37.
"It was all submerged. It's all saltwater and water damage."
After making landfall in South Carolina, Ian is expected to weaken fast and dissipate by tonight.
Before pummelling Florida, Ian plunged all of Cuba into darkness after downing the island's power network.
Electricity was gradually returning, but many homes remain without power.
In North and South Carolina, nearly half a million customers were without power, according to tracking website poweroutage.us, as a weakened Ian nevertheless lashed the states.
Human-induced climate change is resulting in more severe weather events across the globe, scientists say - including with Ian.
According to a rapid and preliminary analysis, human-caused climate change increased the extreme rain that Ian unleashed by over 10%, US scientists said."
According to a rapid and preliminary analysis, human-caused climate change increased the extreme rain that Ian unleashed by over 10%, US scientists said."That statement keeps everyone happy, admittance that human activity did make the storm worse, but 10 percent more rainfall is only one of many aspects about what happened. By only mentioning the rainfall and saying it was only 10 percent, this keeps all the people satisfied who are saying this storm was just like any other storm.
The US population approximately doubled from 1960 to 2022.
60 years ago there were 5 million people in Florida, today there are almost 22 million, a 400 percent increase. Most of the population is not rich. Quite a few people retire there because it is perceived as being an inexpensive, warm place to live. Increasing energy costs and higher temperatures are boosting air conditioning bills, which could severely boost home energy costs.
The thing about the storms over the past 10 years, is that the depth and temperature of warm water in the gulf is so warm that it boosts the storms power rating from category 1 to category 4 in less than a few days.
That's not how it used to be.
The hot water is 500 feet deep and has enough heat energy to boost the energy of a second storm that could be following right behind it. 20 years ago, if a second storm followed right on the heels of another storm, there wouldn't have been enough heat energy in the water to boost the power of the second storm.
For whatever reason the storm traveled very slowly compared to storms 20 or more years ago, which means that even if the rainfall rate was not that great, the amount of rain falling would still be greatly increased because it would be raining longer. Perhaps the storms get stuck to the water by the transference of heat from the water up into the storm, which slows it's forward speed.
The damage estimate is all over the map. Probably the second most costly storm in Florida so far. But there is always next year. Many local insurance companies could go out of business. Bigger, national companies have been cutting back storm insurance to limit losses. This makes it harder and more expensive to get some type of storm insurance.
If a home owner doesn't have plenty of money, they can apply for grants, special loans, or emergency legislated funds. That route for rebuilding can take many years. A lot of people weren't insured.
If local insurance companies go out of business, the cost will be taken up by other local companies, that is a law in Florida. Florida has been monitoring insurance companies and passing legislation to make sure insurance companies can pay the claims. Time will tell if those efforts were successful. At the same time it is getting close to the point where most people won't be able to afford endlessly increasing premiums.
Instead of trying to determine where the flood plain boundaries are, which can't be done anymore anyway, there would simply be no building in the storm surge zone. That area doesn't change, and is predictable. This would take development off the coasts and away from rivers and lakes close to the coast.
A single heavily reinforced house on tall thick pillars is expensive to build.
A cluster of simple apartments sturdily built like a bunker, sitting high up on a common foundation with nothing underneath it except pillars, the next floor for parking, then a floor or two of apartments would probably be easy and cheap to build and perhaps weatherproof. With a minimum number of units there might even be enough solar power for all the units when the power goes out.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/weat...
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Puerto Rico is working towards making their public water supply less vulnerable to interruptions caused by flooding and heavy rain fall accumulations.100 of the 240 public water providing sites use solar power to power the water plants operation so they will continue to work when the power goes out. Besides keeping the water running after a storm, the solar powered water sites will also keep running during power outages that happen when the sun is shinning due to power infrastructure problems which includes random outages.
13 billion was set aside to rebuild Puerto Rico's power grid after hurricane Maria, 5 years ago. Only 43 million has been spent on upgrading the national power grid. Most of that was used to redo the street power poles and wiring. Daily power generation is still erratic.
Water plant sites that don't have solar powered operations are being set up for emergency standby generator operation but a scarcity of diesel fuel limits their effectiveness. The solar powered operation is a better choice.
A lot of the water plants are drawing water from rivers whose levels can rise above the operating range of the water plant. When the river level gets too high from too much rain, the water plant shuts down. It can't start working again until the water level goes down and any debris that gets stuck in the water uptake system has ben removed. Modernizing the water plant can help to reduce water outages but if the river level gets too high, the water plant still has to shut down.
Conversely areas of Puerto Rico have droughts, while other locations can get too much rainfall. The areas experiencing droughts will see the water levels in the rivers fall too low for the water plants to get the water out of the river.
The reports about public water supplies not working in Puerto Rico are going back to water outages caused by lack of reliable power and water intake pipes not able to function, as it was before hurricane Ian. Something that can and does happen at any time.
https://pasquines.us/2022/10/11/puert...
"What can we do to help so that we can all live here?"Question about Florida coastal flooding after years of studies, grants, hearings, temporary solutions, amidst increasing rain falls and storm water damage.
There is no way to keep everything the same and buy our way out of the situation. If we want everything to stay where it is, everything has to be raised way up above potential water levels. This runs into extremely expensive solutions. If the building/infrastructure is right on the coast it will have to be wind driven storm surge proof as well. Which is more money, if it is even feasible. The storm surge not only washes over the land, but it can also erode the land away so it is not even there anymore.
Even moving away from the shore is costly. Relocating requires previous property and possessions to be paid for, plus moving into a new location requires more money and possible displacement of others.
Its like we took out a loan on having good weather so we could live anywhere and do anything we wanted to and now the loan is due, with payment being to move out of harm's way. Defaulting on the payment could mean literally losing everything.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/daytona-be...
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I presume they are temperature sensitive, which might be a drawback for England. But the coastal protection from flooding and storm would be great, and nature would find homes. Anyone know of any drawbacks?
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https://phys.org/news/2022-09-mexican...
A major Pacific area earthquake is expected in the next 30 years which could produce giant tsunami waves that could strike anywhere along Pacific ocean shore lands.A total of 502 tsunami safety towers have been erected in Tokyo and 22 other prefectures through April last year, an 11-fold increase in the number that existed prior to the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.
Besides knowing where the high land is in Japanese communities, people are getting access to tsunami proof towers built in the town centers.
The towers are used in various civic and private ceremonies to make people aware of the towers existence.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1579347...
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Portugal and Spain experiencing heavy rainfall with flooding of low lying areas, especially in the Lisbon area. They have plans for building a 5 KM drainage tunnel, but have not started construction yet. Residents were saying that this was the worst flooding so far."Heavy rain battered parts of the Iberian peninsula on Tuesday, flooding streets, sweeping away cars and forcing authorities in Portugal to close some roads and mobilise the armed forces to support clean up efforts."
https://www.reuters.com/business/envi...
At least 120 killed as floods sweep DR Congo capitalRapid development in the and poor regulation have left Democratic Republic of the Congo’s capital, Kinshasa increasingly vulnerable to flash floods caused by heavy rain.
State sponsored projects of all kinds around the world with negative environmental results are starting to yield quicker diminishing returns at greater rates as the pressures from climate change increase.
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/...
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https://www.costa-news.com/costa-blan...
"December 14, 20220139
A salt marsh dating back to the Roman era is set to be restored to prevent future floods in Jávea’s Arenal district.
The Saladar lagoon was declared brown-site land in 1991, meaning it could be built on, but has never been developed and remains a strip of grassy land near the town’s popular urban beach.
Used as a fishing station over 2,000 years ago, the now-dried up lake could feasibly absorb more than 100,000 cubic metres of water in the event of torrential rain or tidal surges engulfing the streets.
Dr Manuel Gómez Valentín, faculty head at Barcelona polytechnic university, says the surface is ‘like a sponge’ and in an episode of extreme rainfall could soak up around 140,000 cubic metres of water.
The 50,000-square-metre site, if turned back into a lake, would be constructed so that rainwater ran off the streets and into the basin, putting an end to road-blocks caused by sudden downpours."
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https://www.rte.ie/news/newslens/2022...
"It's a simple solution, but one that may keep the marble columns and valuable mosaics of Venice's famous St Mark’s Basilica safe from seawater-induced erosion.
A set of glass barriers installed around the 900-year-old church has kept its floors dry during frequent high tides.
Even after it evaporates, water leaves behind salt crystals that corrode the marble bases of the columns and the floor mosaics, said Mario Piana, the architect and restoration expert in charge of St Mark’s.
The new barriers are made of glass mounted on a base of armoured concrete that is buried below the pavement of St Mark’s Square to resist the force of surging water."
California got 5 inches of rain in some places from the atmospheric river storm, which caused damage to all kinds of things and places. Other western states also suffered damage from the rain and snow in colder locations.Another atmospheric river is due later in the week, which could cause additional flooding if the ground doesn't sufficiently dry out.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/photos-sho...
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