Disasters like Louisiana floods will worsen as planet warms, scientists warn
Yes and fires in California are going to get worse too. So, people at some point are just going to have to move or (rebuild their homes about 10 or 20 times in the same place during their lives.
This is the reality many many places on earth. One solution might be to just have a motor home or mobile home that is large that one can just hook into water and power and gas and drive away in an emergency when legal to live like that according to local building codes. This is one potential solution to the problem.
Otherwise people are likely going to rebuild some places 5 to 10 times up to 20 times in a lifetime and you would have to be pretty rich to be able to afford to actually do this. Because fire insurance and flood insurance is too expensive for most people to actually buy who have homes.
So, the fires will get worse in California and the flooding will get worse wherever it is flooding now in the U.S. or around the world likely. This is to be expected from now on. And where there is drought now this might get worse too like in parts of the Western States.
Everything is changing including where diseases and mosquitos live and where birds live etc. and we all must adapt to these changes or we just won't be around anymore.
Just like it has always been for humans: Adapt or die.
Tornadoes
by the score are devastating the midwest and south. ... It's a hoax,
but it didn't become a political hot potato until money was attached to
it; as always, when money enters the picture, reality becomes distorted by greed. .... It's PROBABLY ...
Disasters like Louisiana floods will worsen as planet warms, scientists warn
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to classify disaster
as the eighth flood considered to be a once-in-every-500-years event in
the US in a year
Close to two feet of rain fell over a 48-hour period in parts of
southern Louisiana, causing residents to scramble to safety from flooded
homes and cars.
Photograph: John Oubre/AP
The historic and devastating floods in Louisiana
are the latest in a series of heavy deluges that some climate
scientists warn will become even more common as the world continues to
warm.
On Tuesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(Noaa) is set to classify the Louisiana disaster as the eighth flood considered to be a once-in-every-500-years event to have taken place in the US in little over 12 months.
Since May of last year, dozens of people have been killed and
thousands of homes have been swamped with water in extreme events in
Oklahoma, Texas, South Carolina, West Virginia and Maryland. Noaa
considers these floods extreme because, based on historical rainfall
records, they should be expected to occur only once every 500 years.
The Louisiana flooding has been so exceptional
that some places in the state experienced storm conditions considered
once-every-1,000-year events. Close to 2ft of rain fell over a 48-hour
period in parts of southern Louisiana, causing residents to scramble to
safety from flooded homes and cars.
At least six people have died, with another 20,000 people having to be rescued. Even Louisiana
governor John Bel Edwards had to evacuate after his governor’s mansion
in Baton Rouge was swamped with chest-high water. A federal state of
emergency has been declared, with 12,000 people crowding into shelters.
The National Weather Service balloon released in New Orleans on Friday showed near-record levels of atmospheric moisture, prompting the service to state:
“We are in record territory.” Climate scientists have warned that the
build-up of moisture in the atmosphere, driven by warming temperatures,
is likely to cause a greater number of floods in the future.
“We have been on an upward trend in terms of heavy rainfall events
over the past two decades, which is likely related to the amount of
water vapor going up in the atmosphere,” said Dr Kenneth Kunkel, of the
Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites.
Louisiana flooding: five dead, 20,000 rescued so far
“There’s a very tight loop – as surface temperatures of the oceans
warm up, the immediate response is more water vapor in the atmosphere.
We’re in a system inherently capable of producing more floods.”
The number of heavy rainfall events in the US has risen well above the long-term average since the 1990s,
with large regional variances. While the north-east, midwest and upper
great plains have experienced a 30% increase in heavy rainfall episodes –
considered once-in-every-five year downpours – parts of the west,
particularly California, have been parched by drought.
Warmer air, influenced by heat-trapping gases released by human
activity, can contain more water vapor than cooler air. With the extra
heat helping nourish storms, scientists expect global warming to help produce more intense downpours.
“Assuming we don’t change our ways, warming is a virtual certainty
and increased water vapor is virtual certainty,” Kunkel said. “That
means increases in heavy rainfall is virtual certainty.”
While scientists are loathe to attribute any single event to changes
in the climate, they state that warming temperatures are helping tip the
scales towards altered precipitation. Some, however, bristle at the
belief that because floods and storms have always occurred, they should
not be linked to climate change.
Dr Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the National Center for
Atmospheric Research, said the major floods seen in the US had a “clear
human component in them. I have seen only a few reports and none mention
climate change at all. It is pathetic.”
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There
are plenty of influences on rainfall levels, including natural
variation and topography. One of the biggest variables will be how much
warmer the world will become – Trenberth said each 1C increase in
temperature can add 7% more moisture in the atmosphere. But plotting
exact projections between warming and the magnitude of downpours is
something scientists are still working on.
“Changes in the global water cycle in response to the warming over the 21st century will not be uniform,” states the latest IPCC assessment.
“The contrast in precipitation between wet and dry regions and between
wet and dry seasons will increase, although there may be regional
exceptions.”
With the US suffering more weather-related disasters than any other country, an increase in rainfall, storm and hurricane intensity is something that could start demanding more attention from lawmakers.
“It’s prudent to consider that if you’re building something with a
100-year lifetime, it’s virtually certain that it will experience an
increase in extreme rainfall,” Kunkel said. “We either pay now or pay
later. If we build resiliency into infrastructure, we can protect life
and property.”
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