Thursday, May 16, 2019

Increased rainfall intensity, as predicted

Heavy rainfall is in the news a lot recently.   A headline in the Washington Post: 

California is already drenched. Now three ‘atmospheric rivers’ may unload two months’ worth of rain.

The midwest is very wet too, and Texas.

And here's a new study on rainfall intensity spotted on twitter:


I see from comments following this Tweet that the denialists take the line "yeah, but it's not that big a problem."

As it's a topic I've been interested in some time, I think common sense suggests that it's in fact a problem for which it is extremely difficult to forecast the economic effects:   I would be very surprised if there is any accurate way to forecast the cost of engineering solutions to landslides, road washouts, and flash flood mitigation generally, both in advanced economies and less advanced ones.  (And some effects are just not going to be capable of being addressed.)


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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:51 pm

    And here I was thinking the problem was more droughts.

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  2. Steve8:45 am

    That's because you have completely been ignoring what has actually been said for many years - global warming can lead to worse drought and worse floods.

    It's not hard to understand why - it takes something wilful ignorance, or (I suppose) a really thick skull to keep saying "Huh? It's either droughts or floods getting worse, it can't be both."

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  3. GMB1:15 pm

    So now rain is bad, droughts are good? With vague terms like "heavy" you are going to be able to pick out anything you want from the data. Its all in the threshold you choose.

    On a multi-decadal level warmer means wetter. On the time period of a single decade you can have the reverse effect. Sadly the 2030's will be cold and dry. And sometime we are set to get a sudden drop in CO2 which will mean famines. Unless the hydro-carbon industry, by our good fortune, can fill that gap. One problem is we no longer can rely on our CO2 levels. They have been monopolised in support of a narrative of continual steady upward growth.

    When was the last time you saw CO2 levels being taken and logged, independent of the monopoly sources? You know the ones who set up camp next to the worlds largest active volcano. So they can give us any figure they like.

    ReplyDelete