Beating Back the Tides (excerpt) : NASA

High-tide floodwaters in downtown Annapolis on April 4, 2017. Credit: City of Annapolis

 "It was a sight you don’t normally see: a jellyfish lying dead in the middle of a parking lot partly submerged in water. But this was no ordinary parking lot. This particular section of asphalt in downtown Annapolis, Maryland, is among a growing number of areas prone to frequent flooding in the seaside town. The jellyfish had slipped in from the Chesapeake Bay through an opening in the seawall.

“You can literally kayak from the bay right into this parking lot,” said NOAA oceanographer William Sweet on the September day that we visited. The tide was relatively low that day.

On days with the highest tides of the year, whole parking lots and streets in Annapolis are underwater, causing delays and traffic congestion. Compromise Street, a major road into town, is often forced to shut down, slowing response times for firefighters and other first responders. Local businesses have lost as much as $172,000 a year, or 1.4% of their annual revenue, due to high-tide floods, according to a study published in 2019 in the journal Science Advances.

High-tide floods, also known as nuisance floods, sunny-day floods, and recurrent tidal floods, occur “when tides reach anywhere from 1.75 to 2 feet above the daily average high tide and start spilling onto streets or bubbling up from storm drains,” according to an annual report on the subject by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA.) These floods are usually not related to storms; they typically occur during high tides, and they impact people’s lives. Because of rising seas driven by climate change, the frequency of this kind of flood has dramatically increased in recent years.".... By Jenny Marder,
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Go to complete NASA article

I’m an American Climate Emigrant (excerpts): Sierra

 "My family moved northward for many reasons—climate chaos was among them

By Jason Mark | Oct 12 2020

We were only a few hours’ drive north of the California-Oregon border when I began to feel the pangs of survivor’s guilt. It was mid-August, and the news from back home was no good. We had busted out of the San Francisco Bay Area just as the heat wave began to sizzle California, and as we drove north through wine country, the temperature gauge in our car said it was 108 degrees outside. Days later, a freak electric storm swung across the state, sparking hundreds of fires. Some of our favorite places were burning: the forested mountains around Santa Cruz and the oak woodlands west of Davis, where we had spent many summer afternoons lounging on the banks of Putah Creek. Smoke was already beginning to choke our friends and former neighbors. “You got out just in time,” a buddy texted. “California is imploding.”

The Oregon coast felt, at that time, like a whole new world. As we threaded our way up Highway 1, the sky was cool and gray, and by evening a thick fog had turned into a spitting rain. The smoke and fires might as well have been on another planet. The rain was a relief, but I couldn’t shake a certain shame. I felt bad about our good fortune, about leaving our community behind to suffer.

I had lived in California for more than 20 years, and my family’s long-planned departure was supposed to be an adventure of sorts, an opportunity to start a new life for ourselves in the Pacific Northwest. For months, we had been looking forward to the move with a mix of trepidation and excitement, the swirl of emotions common to any emigrant: nostalgia for the life we had built, spiked with the thrill of surprising horizons. But now, as grim news piled up in our newsfeeds, the move had taken on a sour taste.

We weren’t merely heading toward a new home in another state. With a disaster unfolding behind us, we were fleeing."

Go to the Sierra article 

 

climate change refugees,climate refugees,#California,#USA,climate fires,floods,tidal flooding,

A season of climate-fueled disasters (excerpt): NYT

Wildfires are still scorching the West as a hurricane hits the South

"It’s pretty scary out there these days. There are wildfires in the West and a hurricane causing  More severe climate fires  “catastrophic” flooding in the South. And the destructiveness of those disasters is being aggravated by climate change.

All of that is keeping those of us on The Times climate team very busy.

For decades, climate journalists focused on the science of climate change, which proves the planet is warming and forecasts the consequences. That goes back at least to 1988, when The Times published a front-page article about the NASA scientist James Hansen, who testified in the Senate and warned in an interview that “It is time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here.”

The government, as we all know, continued to waffle. And here we are. Now, to an ever increasing degree, being a climate reporter is all about catastrophes, reported in real time.

And so, we do what we do. We cover the news. More severe hurricanes In the West, more than 5 million acres have now burned, and fire season still has months to go. Our coverage has focused heavily on the links between wildfires and climate change.

.........................."

By John Schwartz    (Images from this blog)   Read complete NYT article

 Related: How Climate Migration Will Reshape America Millions will be displaced. Where will they go? (excerpt) : NYT Magazine

 Related: The exhausted Raccoons of the Resistance are running an Antifarsonist self care workshop

#climatefires,#climatechange,#climateaction,#climate crisis,hurricanes,floods,science,

COVID-19 can be an historic turning point in tackling the global climate crisis: UK Committee on Climate Change

(Pics from this blog)  

 If only the current Australian government would take advice like this. This is from the United Kingdom's Committee on Climate Change to the U.K. government in 2020.

Climate Action Now

 "Ministers must seize the opportunity to turn the COVID-19 crisis into a defining moment in the fight against climate change, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) says today.
 

In its annual report to Parliament, the Committee provides comprehensive new advice to the Government on delivering an economic recovery that accelerates the transition to a cleaner, net-zero emissions economy and strengthens the country’s resilience to the impacts of climate change.

Cities might become unbearable.

Important steps have been taken in the last year, but much remains to be done. For the first time the Committee sets out its recommendations government department by government department. These are the urgent steps that must be taken in the months ahead to initiate a green, resilient COVID-19 recovery. 

They can be delivered through strong coordination across Whitehall. Doing so will propel the UK towards more rapid climate progress and position the country as an international climate leader ahead of the pivotal COP26 climate summit in Glasgow next year.

CCC Chairman, Lord Deben, said: “The UK is facing its biggest economic shock for a generation. Meanwhile, the global crisis of climate change is accelerating. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address these urgent challenges together; it’s there for the taking. The steps that the UK takes to rebuild from the COVID-19 pandemic can accelerate the transition to a successful and low-carbon economy and improve our climate resilience. 

Choices that lock in emissions or climate risks are unacceptable.”

Climate Change is a fact

Chair of the CCC’s Adaptation Committee, Baroness Brown of Cambridge, said: “COVID-19 has shown that planning for systemic risks is unavoidable. We have warned repeatedly that the UK is poorly prepared for the very serious impacts of climate change, including flooding, overheating and water shortages. Now is the moment to get our house in order, coordinate national planning, and prepare for the inevitable changes ahead. The UK’s domestic ambition can be the basis for strong international climate leadership, but the delivery of effective new policies must accelerate dramatically if we’re to seize this chance.”

The Committee’s new analysis expands on its May 2020 advice to the Prime Minister in which it set out the principles for building a resilient recovery. In its new report, the Committee has assessed a wide set of measures and gathered the latest evidence on the role of climate policies in the economic recovery. Its report highlights five clear investment priorities in the months ahead:

1. Low-carbon retrofits and buildings that are fit for the future.

Hydrogen energy still requires research and development

There are vital new employment and reskilling opportunities across the country if Governments support a national plan to renovate buildings and construct new housing to the highest standards of energy and water efficiency, to begin the shift to low-carbon heating systems, and to protect against overheating. Roll-out of ‘green passports’ for buildings and local area energy plans can begin immediately. 

2. Tree planting, peatland restoration, and green infrastructure. Investing in nature, including in our towns and cities, offers another quick route to opportunities for highly-skilled employment, and outcomes that improve people’s lives. By making substantial changes in our use of land, which are needed to meet the UK’s Net Zero target, we will bring significant benefits for the climate, biodiversity, air quality, and flood prevention.

Land ice is melting

3. Energy networks must be strengthened for the net-zero energy transformation in order to support electrification of transport and heating. Government has the regulatory tools to bring forward private sector investment. New hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CCS) infrastructure will provide a route to establishing new low-carbon British industries. Fast-tracked electric vehicle charging points will hasten the move towards a full phase out of petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2032 or earlier.

4. Infrastructure to make it easy for people to walk, cycle, and work remotely. Dedicated safe spaces for walking and cycling, more bike parking and support for shared bikes and e-scooters can help the nation get back to work in a more sustainable way. For home working to be truly a widespread option, resilient digital technology (5G and fibre broadband) will be needed.

5. Moving towards a circular economy. Within the next five years, we can not only increase reuse & recycling rates rapidly but stop sending biodegradable wastes to landfill. Local authorities need support to invest strategically in separated waste collections and recycling infrastructure and to create new regional jobs.

There are also opportunities to support the transition and the recovery by investing in the UK’s workforce, and in lower-carbon behaviours and innovation:


1. Reskilling and retraining programmes. The net-zero economy will require a net-zero workforce, able to install smart low-carbon heating systems and to make homes comfortable; to design, manufacture and use low-carbon products and materials; and to put carbon back, rather than taking carbon out, from under the North Sea. Now is the time to build that workforce and to equip UK workers with vital skills for the future.

Our children want answers.

2. Leading a move towards positive behaviours. There is a window for Government to reinforce the ‘climate-positive’ behaviours that have emerged during the lockdown, including increased remote working, cycling and walking. The public sector must lead by example by encouraging remote working. It also needs to innovate in order that customer service can be provided effectively remotely.

3. Targeted science and innovation funding. Kick-starting research and innovation now in low-carbon and adaptation technologies will facilitate the changes needed in the decades ahead and build UK competitive advantage. The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of research if we are to understand fully the threats and learn how to manage them.

Cities must retreat from the coast.

Achieving the UK’s climate goals and rebuilding the economy fit naturally together. Each makes the other possible. Success demands that we do both. The actions recommended by the CCC will deliver an improved economy, better public health, improved biodiversity and access to nature, cleaner air, more comfortable homes and highly productive and rewarding employment."

Related:   Climate change: How the UK contributes to global deforestation (excerpt): BBC

#economy, #heatwaves, Britain, cities, COVID-19, energy, England, floods, infrastructure damage, reskilling, science, tidal flooding, United Kingdom

Lessons From the Frontlines of Global Warming (excerpt): New Republic

"What interviews with flood, wildfire, and drought survivors can teach us about how to live amid the threat of climate change

 

Extreme heat kills

Ronnie Scott lost his wife when she tried to to rescue their dog and cat from floodwaters in West Virginia in 2016. Carole Duncan almost lost her 83-year-old father during Australia’s massive 2019 bushfires, the firefighters finding him just in time. 

KerryAnn Laufer returned home days after the 2019 Kincade Fire in California to find only her fireplace still standing, while Dave Mackey saw nearly every house in his neighborhood on Grand Bahama island washed away, pummeled by raging waters and 200-mile-per-hour winds from Hurricane Dorian.

Storms, wildfires, and other such disasters are getting more common and intense as climate change accelerates. Scott, Duncan, Laufer, and Mackey, who survived these extreme weather events, are among the lucky ones. But each of them found themselves changed by the experience.


What would you do if your house burned down or your neighborhood washed away in a flood? How would you respond if a cataclysmic weather event killed someone you love or forced you to abandon, perhaps forever, the place you call home? And how would it change the way you think about the world?


These questions are at the heart of a new “Voices from the Future”

Green new deal is cheap actually

interview series a small group of journalist, researchers, and I have developed at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University. We have collected the stories and insights of nearly three dozen survivors on five continents, eight of which will be published in these pages over the next few weeks."

Original story 

Steven Beschloss is a professor of practice at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and directs the Narrative Storytelling Initiative at Arizona State University. He has written for The New Yorker and The Washington Post, among other publications.

 

#California, #firestorms, #wildfire, Australia, cyclones, floods, Green New Deal, hurricanes, 


 

Leaked IPCC report warns of the future of oceans in climate change: Global Landscapes Forum

"This topic will be discussed at the Global Landscapes Forum New York 2019. Learn more about how to join here.

The world’s vast oceans, glacial ice sheets and northern permafrost are poised to unleash disaster, including drought, floods, hunger and destruction, unless dramatic action is taken against human-caused carbon pollution and climate change, warns a leaked draft of a major U.N. report.

The Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC) sounds alarm bells over declines in fish stocks, plus “a hundred-fold or more increase in the damages caused by superstorms, and hundreds of millions of people displaced by rising seas,” according to news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP), which obtained a copy of the 900-page draft report."

Read the complete article 

Related:

Great Barrier Reef outlook now 'very poor', Australian government review says: The Guardian

Death, blackouts, melting asphalt: ways the climate crisis will change how we live : The Guardian

"From power cuts to infrastructure failure, the impact of climate change on US cities will be huge – but many are already innovating to adapt."

"Deaths. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an average of 658 people die every year from heat-related causes. From 1999 to 2010, 8,081 heat-related deaths were reported in the United States and occurred more commonly among older, younger and poorer populations. Urban heat islands retain heat overnight, preventing people from sleeping well and leading to even more health problems, says Lucy Hutyra, an associate professor of earth and environment at Boston University. Air pollution is often worst on hot days, and when people leave windows open for air flow, the quality of the air can cause respiratory problems. Warmer, moister conditions also mean that heavy rainfall and subsequent flooding is on the rise; so far this year 78 people have died as a result, according to the National Weather Service."

"Economic Impact. According to a 2018 study by Texas A&M University: “The growing number of extreme rainfall events that produce intense precipitation are resulting in –and will continue to result in – increased urban flooding unless steps are taken to mitigate their impacts.” The 2017 National Climate Assessment concluded: “Heavy downpours are increasing nationally, especially over the last three to five decades …[and that] … increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events are projected for all U.S. regions.” Between 2007 and 2011 alone, urban flooding in Cook County, Illinois, resulted in over 176,000 claims or flood losses at a cost of $660m (£545m)."

Read complete The Guardian story

Related: 

Australia coal use is 'existential threat' to Pacific islands, says Fiji PM

Fleeing climate change - the real environmental disaster | DW Documentary

DW Documentary

Published on May 2, 2019

How many millions of people will be forced to leave their homes by 2050? This documentary looks at the so-called hotspots of climate change in the Sahel zone, Indonesia and the Russian Tundra. Lake Chad in the Sahel zone has already shrunk by 90 percent since the 1960s due to the increasing heat. About 40 million people will be forced to migrate to places where there is enough rainfall. Migration has always existed as a strategy to adapt to a changing environment. But the number of those forced to migrate solely because of climate change has increased dramatically since the 1990s. It is a double injustice: after becoming rich at the expense of the rest of the world, the industrialized countries are now polluting the atmosphere with their emissions and bringing a second misfortune to the inhabitants of the poorer regions. One of them is Mohammed Ibrahim: as Lake Chad got hotter and drier, he decided to go where the temperatures were less extreme and there was still a little water, trekking with his wife, children and 70 camels from Niger to Chad and then further south. The journey lasted several years and many members of his herd died of thirst. Now he and his family are living in a refugee camp: they only have seven camels left. Mohammed is one of many who have left their homelands in the Sahel - not because of conflict and crises, but because of the high temperatures. He's a real climate refugee.

Climate breakdown to trigger debate over which cities to protect from rising sea levels:The Independent

New York

‘You realise we’re just not going to protect a lot of these places’

"As disaster costs keep rising across the United States, a troubling new debate has become urgent: if there’s not enough money to protect every coastal community from the effects of human-caused global warming, how should we decide which ones to save first?

After three years of brutal flooding and hurricanes, there is growing consensus among policymakers and scientists that coastal areas will require significant spending to ride out future storms and rising sea levels — not in decades but now and in the very near future.

There is also a growing realisation that some communities, even sizeable ones, will be left behind."

Read complete Independent article 

Related: 

Sea Level Rise Can No Longer Be Stopped, What Next? - with John Englander

Pentagon Warns of Dire Risk to Bases, Troops From Climate Change: Bloomberg

Wild Fire Risks from Climate Change

"The U.S. Defense Department has issued a dire report on how climate change could affect the nation’s armed forces and security, warning that rising seas could inundate coastal bases and drought-fueled wildfires could endanger those that are inland.

The 22-page assessment delivered to Congress on Thursday says about two-thirds of 79 mission-essential military installations in the U.S. that were reviewed are vulnerable now or in the future to flooding and more than half are at risk from drought. About half also are at risk from wildfires, including the threat of mudslides and erosion from rains after the blazes."


Read the full Bloomberg story
January 19, 2019 

How climate change will affect your mortgage: SMH

Economic impact of climate change

In ordinary times, a person standing up to make a statement of the bleeding obvious isn’t news.

But the times, my friends, are anything but ordinary.

And in these times, when a person stands up and says climate change will have an inevitable impact on our economy, that is news.

Read the full SMH story

See also Port Macquarie map after a 7m sea rise 

How affected will Macksville NSW be by a 7m sea rise? Quite affected.

Macksville 7m sea rise - Click to enlarge

• We are looking more and more unlikely to prevent global heating.

• Scientists are predicting the melting of the ice covering Greenland  with a subsequent sea level rise of 7m.

• This rise does not factor in sea rise from the melting of Antarctica and other ice.

• Already many properties and infrastructures are likely to flood when a high tide is combined with high local rainfall. What were a hundred year rainfall events are now ten year events.

• The frequency of high rainfall events will increase with global heating and more and more severe hurricanes are predicted because of warmer seas.

• Low coastal areas will also be subjected to severe storm surges.

• Would you buy a property likely to be inundated in twenty years, fifty years, a hundred years? Many wouldn't. Even the perception of possible inundation will greatly affect property values. Insurers are already reluctant to insure many properties that were once only likely to flood every 100 years.

• When certain properties are in less demand their value falls.

• Would you buy a property with a value likely to fall?

•  The view of Macksville above shows areas likely to be inundated by even a 7m sea level rise. Note the flooding of infrastructure and roads. Water supply will be affected. How could levees hold back such an onslaught?

• Property above a 10m rise will become highly sought after and will greatly rise in value. Property able to be accessed by road will increase in value but properties isolated by sea rise will lose value. New, costly road routes above the Nambucca River floodplain will be required. Will NSW be able to afford to update all its infrastructure?

Isaac Cordal sculpture depicting politicians discussing global warming

Learn more about how sea rise inundation will affect Australian property.

Click here to go to Coastal Risk Australia site

Related: 'Retreat' Is Not An Option As A California Beach Town Plans For Rising Seas: NPR 


#inundation  #sea rise  #searise  #climatecrisis  #climatechange  #ice  #melting ice  #insurancerisk  #floods  #climate catastrophe  #Macksville

Will sea rise affect property values in Kempsey? It looks like it.

Kempsey NSW with a 7m sea rise. Click to enlarge.

• We are looking more and more unlikely to prevent global heating.

• Scientists are predicting the melting of the ice covering Greenland  with a subsequent sea level rise of 7m.

• This rise does not factor in sea rise from the melting of Antarctica and other ice.

• Already many properties are likely to flood when a high tide is combined with high local rainfall. What were a hundred year rainfall events are now ten year events.

• The frequency of high rainfall events will increase with global heating and more and more severe hurricanes are predicted because of warmer seas.

• Low coastal areas will be subjected to severe storm surges.

• Would you buy a property likely to be inundated in twenty years, fifty years, a hundred years? Many wouldn't. Even the perception of possible inundation will greatly affect property values. Insurers are already reluctant to insure many properties that were once only likely to flood every 100 years.

• When certain properties are in less demand their value falls.

• Would you buy a property with a value likely to fall?

•  The view of Kempsey above shows areas likely to be inundated by a 7m sea level rise.

• Property above a 10m rise will become highly sought after and will greatly rise in value.

Learn more about how sea rise inundation will affect Australian property.

Click here to go to Coastal Risk Australia site

'Retreat' Is Not An Option As A California Beach Town Plans For Rising Seas: NPR 


#inundation  #sea rise  #searise  #climatecrisis  #climatechange  #ice  #melting ice  #insurancerisk  #floods  #climate catastrophe 

Video: UN Secretary-General António Guterres calls for global action on climate change

"Climate Change is the defining issue of our time and we are at a defining moment. From shifting weather patterns that threaten food production, to rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding, the impacts of climate change are global in scope and unprecedented in scale. 
Without drastic action today, adapting to these impacts in the future will be more difficult and costly."

Read more

The Guardian: We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN

Urgent changes needed to cut risk of extreme heat, drought, floods and poverty, says IPCC

• Overwhelmed by climate change? Here’s what you can do

The world’s leading climate scientists have warned there is only a dozen years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.
 
The authors of the landmark report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released on Monday say urgent and unprecedented changes are needed to reach the target, which they say is affordable and feasible although it lies at the most ambitious end of the Paris agreement pledge to keep temperatures between 1.5C and 2C.

Read the full The Guardian article

The odd ways that weather can unfold in a warming world

"Hurricane Harvey slammed into Houston, Texas, on August 25, 2017. Normally, hurricanes keep moving. Their high winds and torrential rains tend to last for only a brief time. But Harvey just sat over the city. For days. And it dumped a lot of rain. Really, a lot. By the time the storm had moved on, on August 29, it had drowned Houston with a whopping 164 centimeters (64.6 inches) of water, according to one rain gauge. That’s a record rainfall from one storm in one place in the continental United States. In fact, Harvey dumped so much rain that the National Weather Service had to add new colors to their rainfall maps of the event."

.......................

"And heavier rains and stronger storms are not the only ways in which a warming world is making our weather weirder. Higher temperatures can trigger droughts. Heat waves become more likely, and droughts can make them even worse. There can be changes to both global and local weather patterns. And the effects won’t always be what’s expected. In one truly odd twist, the continuing loss of summertime sea ice in the Arctic Ocean — one big result of a warming world — could make Siberian winters colder. What could be wackier than that?"

Read Full article Science News for Students