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A World in Hot Water sees Floods, Floods Everywhere
4
January, 2016
2015 was the hottest climate year in the global record by a long shot. According to Japan’s Meteorological Agency, temperatures were a full 0.18 degrees Celsius hotter than 1998, which is now the third hottest climate year on record, and a whopping 0.13 C above just last year (the second hottest year on record).
It’s
a part of a larger warming trend that began during the latter 19th
Century. One that has now seen more than 1 degree Celsius of total
overall global warming. And so, in a little more than one hundred and
thirty years, humans through a massive burning of carbon based fuels,
have forced the world to warm by about 20 percent of all the warming
seen at the end of the last ice age. But at that great glacial
termination it typically took about 2,000 years for the world to warm
by the amount we’ve now seen over little more than a Century.
A
World in Record Hot Water
That’s
a lot of heat accumulation for a very short period of time. A massive
heat build-up that saw its most recent high point just this past year
(2015). And all that extra heat accumulating over 2014-2015 blew an
extraordinary amount of water vapor into the Earth’s atmosphere.
Water vapor that primarily boiled off of Ocean hot spot zones. One of
these zones, the Eastern Equatorial Pacific, experienced some of its
hottest temperatures ever recorded as a monster El Nino blew up
through that region. But other ocean surface hot spots abounded. The
Northeastern Pacific, the Atlantic Ocean off the US East Coast,
regions of the upper Northern Hemisphere Latitudes including the
Barents and Bering Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, the
Southern Pacific, the Southern Atlantic off South America and Africa
and many other regions in between all experienced much warmer than
normal surface temperatures.
(Extremely
warm sea surface temperatures around the world are dumping an
extraordinary amount of moisture into the global atmosphere. As
global temperatures hit peak just after El Nino, a heavy volume of
this moisture is likely to come down in the form of extreme
precipitation events. And with global temperatures at record levels,
the resulting storms could be extroardinarily powerful. We’ve
already seen some of this weather. But there’s all-too-likely more
in the pipe. Image source: NOAA’s
Earth Systems Research Laboratory.)
These
hot waters generated unprecedented plumes of moisture. The water
vapor flooded into the record hot atmosphere. And as we neared peak
global temperature readings, or even worse, started to come off that
peak, some of that massive volume of water hanging in the air began
to precipitate out.
River
Threatens to Devour 16th Century Castle in Scotland
One
of the heaviest hit regions — Northern England and Scotland — has
experienced the worst floods in its history this Winter. Residents of
this waterlogged country now all-too-often report rivers of water
running down the streets just outside their homes. And time after
time during storm after storm, hundreds to thousands are forced to
flee the record high and rising waters. Last
week, a powerful North Atlantic low pushed river levels so high that
a bridge that had lasted through more than three Centuries of floods
finally succumbed to the epic torrent.
Today, the
raging Dee River devoured 250 feet of bank and is now threatening to
undermine Abergeldie Castle —
a structure that has stood against storms for the past 450 years. But
one that is now no match for the hydrological events arising in a
record hot world.
According
to some, climate change was only supposed to threaten the poor. But
the particular natural disaster that we’ve brewed up apparently
didn’t get the message. Abergeldie is the residence of an Scottish
Baron and friend to the Queen — John Gordon (76) together with his
wife. Sadly, these well established people have also recently joined
the ranks of refugees to a disaster that does not discriminate. One
that can devour homes and residences of any variety — those of any
people of any nation and of any walk of life. Baron Gordon may not
know it yet, but he stands in solidarity with the people of island
nations around the world, with Bangladeshis, and with the hundreds of
thousands of people all displaced by extreme weather events just this
year. All of whom are deserving of our best efforts to help them and
to, most of all, prevent ever worsening extreme weather events of the
kinds we are now experiencing on a global basis.
“The castle is in imminent danger and John is at his wits’ end. It’s not only a home. It’s the heritage, the history. Nothing can be done while the river is in spate like it is. It’s just thundering down. It swept away and smashed the mature trees at the back of the house like matchsticks. It also took 250ft of the bank away and all the ground at the back. The river is right at the back door.”
160,000
Displaced by Floods in South America
For
many in South America last week, the situation was just as dire.
Regions suffering from a two year long drought suddenly found
themselves facing off against some of the worst rainfall events in at
least the last 50 years. Powerful storms driven by the massive heat
and moisture bleed off the Equatorial Pacific ripped through the
region — sparking high winds, ripping down power lines and
inundating the area with flooding rains.
By
December 27th, when the rains had mostly abated, tens of thousands of
people were displaced by rising flood waters. In
Paraguay alone more than 100,000 people were forced to flee the
floods.
And throughout the rest of South America including sections of
Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina another 60,000 were made refugees by
the raging waters.
(Floods,
floods everywhere. NASA tracks the global extreme weather events of
2015 in the stunning composite video above. Video source: NASA.)
The
floods swamped thousands of homes — ripping apart roads and other
critical infrastructure as the region reeled to respond to the
disaster. By
Monday, December 28 the only form of transportation through much of
the vast impacted area was by boat.
Missouri,
Illinois Inundated
At
about the same time historic floods were ripping through England and
Paraguay last week, a massive storm system was in the process of
dumping more than a foot of rain over some sections of the Central
US. The heavy rains swamped Missouri spurring the government there to
declare a state of emergency even as heavy impacts spread over a
multi-state region of the Central US. The storm — dubbed The
Four Season Storm —
by Dr Jeff Masters over at Weather
Underground,
immediately put over 1.5 million people in the affected region under
flood warnings as town after town was swamped by the torrential
downpours associated with the powerful system’s eastern edge.
(The
Mississippi leaps its banks amidst freak, unseasonable storms during
December of 2015 and January of 2016. This image taken at 39,000
feet by
pilot Chris Manno in
a 737 over Missouri on January 3rd.)
By
today, the heavy rains dumped by the storm were well on their way
through the Mississippi River basin and its tributaries. As a result
more than 7 million people across the Central US are now impacted. In
Illinois, levee breeches sent waters flowing out over lands up to six
miles away from the Mississippi — swamping roads, homes and
vehicles.
Meanwhile, back in flood-soaked Missouri Governor Jay Nixon was
inspecting the aftermath.
“I’m from this part of the state and, quite frankly, it’s almost hard to believe. It’s almost as if you’re living on some other planet.”
Heavy
Weather Takes Aim at US West Coast
As
multiple regions of the world reel under freak and historic flooding,
the storm track in the North Pacific is now angling in at the US West
Coast. A strong storm system is now battering California with heavy
winds and rains. The system, which raged in out of the Pacific upon
the backs of 27 foot waves, is now venting its fury over California.
It’s the first of a series of storms that are, in total, predicted
to dump as much as 7 inches of rain over the region by the end of
this week.
(NOAA’s
7 day liquid precipitation equivalent forecast shows 4 to 7 inches of
rain or equivalent snow predicted to fall over Coastal California,
the Sierra Nevada range and Central Arizona. For southwestern desert
regions, especially, the predicted weather is expected to be
unusually heavy. Image source: NOAA
Weather Prediction Center.)
With
three storms expected to impact the region over the next four days,
it appears the flood risk is now taking aim at California. The
extreme moisture of a record warm atmosphere again appears to be set
to unload. Lets hope that our fellows on the US West Coast are
prepared.
Links:
Hat
Tip to Colorado Bob
Hat
Tip to DT Lange
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