Climate change drives rain, floods in Today's Austin American statesman
Dale Bulla
Monday, July 1, 2024
Climate change drives rain, floods Dinah Voyles Pulver USA TODAY A raging flood pulled a family's home of more than 50 years into the Blue Earth River in southern Minnesota last week as a community watched in horror. The river's water flow had tripled in three days after 11 to 18 inches of rain fell in a little more than a week. The swollen river carved a new pathway around the Rapidan Dam, threatening to collapse the dam and the nearby store where the home's owners had served up pies and shakes for decades. Similar intense rains have pummeled much of the north-central U.S. in June, causing devastating floods, with major flooding underway on the Big and Little Sioux rivers, the Des Moines River and the Minnesota River. Rain isn't just falling, it's breaking records and falling at intense rates brought on by the warming climate. Flooding has always occurred along rivers and streams, but now the warmer air allows the atmosphere to hold more water, and storms are often supercharged by the flow of moisture from warming oceans. As communities flood more often, the pressure is growing to prepare for and adapt to more frequent flooding. That pressure is reflected in two developments over the past month: A groundbreaking climate action law in Vermont and a federally commissioned report that finds the government's calculations for maximum potential rainfall are no longer valid. 'Climate change is leading to wetter, more extreme precipitation events,' said Kevin Reed, an associate provost for climate and sustainability programming at Stony Brook University. More than 200 stream gauges in the North Central U.S. were in various stages of flooding last week. Vermont flood spurs legislation In Vermont, a 9-inch deluge last July triggered a devastating flood and damages estimated at $1billion. That spurred state legislators in May to approve the 'climate superfund act.' 'Vermont had just faced one of the most catastrophic climate disasters in its history,' said Elena Mihaly, vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation Vermont, which helped lobby for the bill. 'It was a very frightening time where Vermonters really felt the vulnerability.' The legislation aims to recover the costs of such climate disasters by seeking payments from large fossil fuel companies for their extraction and refining activities that caused climate-related impacts in Vermont over a period dating back to 1995. The state plans to conduct a cost analysis to determine what the costs are to Vermont now and in the future from the extraction and refinement of the products that produce greenhouse gas emissions, Mihaly said, to help recoup costs that are now falling 'entirely on taxpayers shoulders.' The money collected will go to climate change adaptation projects. 'Historical changes' The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine published the study, sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, after it was directed by Congress to bring the nation's 'probable maximum precipitation' estimates into line with the changing climate. The worst-case scenario precipitation estimates are used by engineers when building critical facilities such as dams and nuclear power plants. The estimates reduce the risk of catastrophic flooding and build structures that can withstand extreme rainfall. The Academies convened a committee with experts on extreme rainfall. The committee found that 'climate change has resulted in historical changes in extreme rainfall and the likelihood that greater changes will occur over the coming decades.' Its report presents a broad range of recommendations to develop more accurate estimates by improving modeling and formulas and incorporating additional scientific research. Copyright (c) 2024 Austin American-Statesman, Edition 7/1/2024 |