I just spoke with friends in the Heights area of houston, literally named because its higher elevation. Everyone in inner city Houston is trapped. She told me her neighborhood can take about 15 more inches before houses start to take water... the vast majority of the city is not as lucky.
There will be a few lives lost, sure, but almost everyone got smoked by water damage in their homes. These people are literally losing their houses to the flood (which isnt covered by homeowners or renters insurance).
Speaking with people yesterday, it was a huge yawner... today people are starting to panic. There's supposed to be 3 to 5 more days of rain. This is a legit problem
$50k of damage to 1 million homes, plus an equal amount of damage to businesses. I suppose my guess is $100 billion in damage
That's just the beginning of the costs of climate change. Sure, you can't pinpoint climate change as the cause of any single weather event, but we do know that such storms are becoming more common and more severe because of climate change.
This is exactly how the true costs of climate change will be paid for by all the deniers.
www.Da-VS39gdfQ
The once in 500 years flood will be happening during many years of the next century.
$50k of damage to 1 million homes, plus an equal amount of damage to businesses. I suppose my guess is $100 billion in damage
That's just the beginning of the costs of climate change
thats just the beginning of the cost of harvey for sure. $100 billion is my back of envelope guess for houston only. The entire southern texas coast was destroyed. San Antonio was flooded as well.
That's just the beginning of the costs of climate change.
Oh my goodness Dan - guess I should have expected it. Yeah this is due to climate change my ass. Let's see the last hurricane to hit was 9 years ago, sure have increased. Get off the soapbox and show some compassion. I AM just outside Houston and (thankfully) and dry, safe and have electricity but thousands and thousands are not so lucky. To blame climate change is a JOKE!!!!
Again, that's only the beginning. Since dumb ass climate change deniers are prevented us from stopping climate change and are preventing us from limiting the severity of it, just so that greedy executives can continue to pollute, there will be many more of these hurricanes causing multi-trillion dollar damage in both infrastructure and lost economic productivity. And that's excluding all the costs of pollution in general.
And these enormous costs to real estate and infrastructure and the lost of productivity is exactly how the economic costs of climate change will be born by the middle class and the taxpayers. They will pay through insurance costs, direct home repairs, lower wages as employers cut costs because of lost productivity, and higher taxes to pay for all the government bailouts. I've said for years that even if you don't give a shit about the environment, you should still care about climate change because of the severe economic costs. Only a fool thinks that spending hundreds of trillions of dollars to increase the profits of corporations by hundreds of millions is a good trade off.
And again, no individual weather event can be traced back to climate change, but statistically we already know that weather events such as these have increased due to climate change. And only a complete idiot would advocate continuing to ignore climate change simply because individual events cannot be traced to it.
And again, no individual weather event can be traced back to climate change, but statistically we already know that weather events such as these have increased due to climate change. And only a complete idiot would advocate continuing to ignore climate change simply because individual events cannot be traced to it.
Will the lunacy ever end? Only a complete idiot would ignore the common man-on-the-street just because a murder cannot be traced to him. Sheesh, the weather is warm, oh it's climate change. The weather is mild, oh it's climate change. The weather is cold, it's climate change. The weather isn't as cold as the last 10 years, it's climate change. The weather is colder than it has been looking back 5 years, it's climate change. And the really, really cool thing ... it's weather, it's climate and we can't do a darn thing about it.
I AM just outside Houston and (thankfully) and dry, safe and have electricity but thousands and thousands are not so lucky. To blame climate change is a JOKE!!!!
I'm glad you are OK MMMarvel.
The damage is significant. I'm confident Trump will do whatever it takes to help Houston, and those who are affected.
Seems like a civil engineering failure. It's not like hurricanes are that uncommon there.
I am near Houston also, and we are fine, did not get water into house. It rained like hell, but on flip side there are nearly no deaths (probably less than we would have on highway crashes in 3 days), city emergency people and locals with boats did a nice job in evacuating everyone who needed, and overall all has been not chaotic.
I do not think this is an engineering failure, if anything all this happens because too much area is paved over with damn Yankee/California transplant McMansions. Instead of ponds and streams we have concrete and houses everywhere. Highways here are actualy meant to be flooded to channel water away from houses/businesses (288 and 59 inside city ALWAYS flood and look like streams). And this is the first time in recorded history of this type of flood, much worse that Allison. We can not prepare for an event which is extremely rare.
Again, that's only the beginning. Since dumb ass climate change deniers are prevented us from stopping climate change and are preventing us from limiting the severity of it, just so that greedy executives can continue to pollute, there will be many more of these hurricanes causing multi-trillion dollar damage in both infrastructure and lost economic productivity. And that's excluding all the costs of pollution in general.
Dan, I appreciate your opinion of climate change and often agree with you - for example, the fact that Earth gets warmer is a scientific FACT and only retards can argue with that. We can argue about the cause or interpretation, but not about the fact.
Having said that, I do not think that cutting CO2 emissions to 0 would have prevented Harvey or more precisely changed its screwed up track, which cause the flood problems. In last 10 yrs we did not get much hurricanes in Gulf, so if the warming would cause them, then we should get MORE of them.
Let's see. One one hand we have hard-core peer reviewed science showing tens of thousands of independent lines of evidence that man-made climate change is real and that severe storms and flooding are some of the results of climate change. On the other hand we have an anonymous person with zero evidence and credibility making a poorly written statement that climate change is bullshit. I'll go with the scientists over you any day.
Powerful rain and snow storms-and, ironically, intense drought periods-are a well-known consequence of a warmer planet.
Over the past 30 years there has been a pattern of increasingly higher average temperatures for the whole world. In fact, the first decade of this century (2001–2010) was the hottest decade recorded since reliable records began in the late 1800s.
These rising temperatures-caused primarily by an increase of heat-trapping emissions in the atmosphere created when we burn coal, oil, and gas to generate electricity, drive our cars, and fuel our businesses-are what we refer to as global warming.
One consequence of global warming is an increase in both ocean evaporation into the atmosphere, and the amount of water vapor the atmosphere can hold. High levels of water vapor in the atmosphere in turn create conditions more favorable for heavier precipitation in the form of intense rain and snow storms.
The United States is already experiencing more intense rain and snow storms.
As the Earth warms, the amount of rain or snow falling in the heaviest one percent of storms has risen nearly 20 percent on average in the United States-almost three times the rate of increase in total precipitation between 1958 and 2007.
In other words, the heaviest storms have very recently become even heavier.
The Northeast has seen a 74 percent increase in the amount of rain or snow falling in the heaviest storms.
As storms increase in intensity, flooding becomes a larger concern.
Flash floods, which pose the most immediate risks for people, bridges and roads, and buildings on floodplains, result in part from this shift toward more extreme precipitation in a warming world.
Regions previously thought to be safe from floods are increasingly threatened by them; agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the US Geological Survey (USGS), among others, are working to gather information that can be used to redraw flood maps to help anticipate vulnerable areas.
As the world has warmed, that warming has triggered many other changes to the Earth’s climate. Changes in extreme weather and climate events, such as heat waves and droughts, are the primary way that most people experience climate change. Human-induced climate change has already increased the number and strength of some of these extreme events. Over the last 50 years, much of the U.S. has seen increases in prolonged periods of excessively high temperatures, heavy downpours, and in some regions, severe floods and droughts.
Heavy downpours are increasing nationally, especially over the last three to five decades. The heaviest rainfall events have become heavier and more frequent, and the amount of rain falling on the heaviest rain days has also increased. Since 1991, the amount of rain falling in very heavy precipitation events has been significantly above average. This increase has been greatest in the Northeast, Midwest, and upper Great Plains – more than 30% above the 1901-1960 average. There has also been an increase in flooding events in the Midwest and Northeast, where the largest increases in heavy rain amounts have occurred.
One measure of heavy precipitation events is a two-day precipitation total that is exceeded on average only once in a 5-year period, also known as the once-in-five-year event. As this extreme precipitation index for 1901-2012 shows, the occurrence of such events has become much more common in recent decades.
The mechanism driving these changes is well understood. Warmer air can contain more water vapor than cooler air. Global analyses show that the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere has in fact increased due to human-caused warming.,,, This extra moisture is available to storm systems, resulting in heavier rainfalls. Climate change also alters characteristics of the atmosphere that affect weather patterns and storms.
Increasingly, humanity is also adding to weather-related factors, as human-induced warming increases heavy downpours, causes more extensive storm surges due to sea level rise, and leads to more rapid spring snowmelt.
Worldwide, from 1980 to 2009, floods caused more than 500,000 deaths and affected more than 2.8 billion people. In the United States, floods caused 4,586 deaths from 1959 to 2005 while property and crop damage averaged nearly 8 billion dollars per year (in 2011 dollars) over 1981 through 2011. The risks from future floods are significant, given expanded development in coastal areas and floodplains, unabated urbanization, land-use changes, and human-induced climate change.
There has been a substantial increase in most measures of Atlantic hurricane activity since the early 1980s, the period during which high quality satellite data are available.,, These include measures of intensity, frequency, and duration as well as the number of strongest (Category 4 and 5) storms. The recent increases in activity are linked, in part, to higher sea surface temperatures in the region that Atlantic hurricanes form in and move through. Numerous factors have been shown to influence these local sea surface temperatures, including natural variability, human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases, and particulate pollution.
By late this century, models, on average, project an increase in the number of the strongest (Category 4 and 5) hurricanes. Models also project greater rainfall rates in hurricanes in a warmer climate, with increases of about 20% averaged near the center of hurricanes.
While no single weather event can attributed to global warming, it is critical to understand that a warming climate is supplying the very conditions that fuel these kinds of weather events. It is a fact that warmer air can hold more moisture.
If it seems like the United States is getting more heavy storms and major floods these days, it's because we are. Global warming is partly to blame for these heavy rainfall events. Because warmer air can hold more moisture, heavier precipitation is expected in the years to come.
Recent decades have brought more heavy summer rainfall events along with increased likelihood of devastating floods. While no single storm or flood can be attributed directly to global warming, changing climate conditions are at least partly responsible for past trends. Because warmer air can hold more moisture, global warming is expected to bring more and heavier precipitation in the years to come.
As global temperatures rise and the oceans warm, what used to be 500-year floods are now happening more frequently.
Extreme storms like these have become more common as global temperatures have risen and the oceans have warmed. Some have the clear fingerprints of man-made climate change.
"Of course there is a climate change connection, because the oceans and sea surface temperatures are higher now because of climate change, and in general that adds 5 to 10 percent to the precipitation," Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said. "There have been many so-called 500-year floods along the Mississippi about every five to 10 years since 1993."
An attribution study of last August's deadly Louisiana's storms—classified as a 1,000-year storm in the worst-hit areas and a 500-year storm in others—found that human-caused climate warming increased the chances of the torrential rains by at least 40 percent.
That figure corresponds to the overall increase in extreme storms in the region.
"Across the board, the United States has seen an increase in the heaviest rainfall events, and the Midwest specifically has seen an increase [in these events] of almost 40 percent," said Heidi Cullen, chief scientist at Climate Central and a member of World Weather Attribution (WWA), a group that is developing methods to quickly determine climate change's role in extreme weather events.
Climate scientists explain that as the planet warms, evaporation increases, leading to more moisture in the atmosphere and more precipitation. Across the Midwest, upper Great Plains and Northeast, the amount of precipitation during very heavy events has increased more than 30 percent above the 1901-1960 average, according to the third National Climate Assessment.
Flooding, too, has risen in several of these regions. Storms characterized as 500-year events, meaning they have an amount of precipitation expected to occur once every 500 years, have increased. The Louisiana storms last summer had been the eighth 500-year event in the U.S. in just over a year.
Rising global average temperature is associated with widespread changes in weather patterns. Scientific studies indicate that extreme weather events such as heat waves and large storms are likely to become more frequent or more intense with human-induced climate change. This chapter focuses on observed changes in temperature, precipitation, storms, floods, and droughts.
Long-term changes in climate can directly or indirectly affect many aspects of society in potentially disruptive ways. For example, warmer average temperatures could increase air conditioning costs and affect the spread of diseases like Lyme disease, but could also improve conditions for growing some crops. More extreme variations in weather are also a threat to society. More frequent and intense extreme heat events can increase illnesses and deaths, especially among vulnerable populations, and damage some crops. While increased precipitation can replenish water supplies and support agriculture, intense storms can damage property, cause loss of life and population displacement, and temporarily disrupt essential services such as transportation, telecommunications, energy, and water supplies.
“We’re told by climate scientists to expect more of these extreme weather events, flooding in some areas and drought in others,†Postel added. “And as Australia has shown us they can even occur in the same place, when biblical-scale flooding followed a decade of historic drought.â€
Top climate models predict the wet will get wetter and the dry drier with respect to precipitation in a warming world, but that extremes will increase just about everywhere. His observations showing that real precipitation extremes rose during the 20th century’s second half seem to bear that out.
But hey, mmmarvel, keep challenging me on the fact. Every time you do is an opportunity for me to expose your ignorance and deception using real evidence from scientists all over the world and to remind the world that you climate change deniers have absolutely zero evidence excluding debunked false evidence by paid shilled of polluters. So go on, say more. Please.
Comments 1 - 20 of 57 Next » Last » Search these comments
Holy crap, the lower roads are submerged.
Seems like a civil engineering failure. It's not like hurricanes are that uncommon there.
There will be a few lives lost, sure, but almost everyone got smoked by water damage in their homes. These people are literally losing their houses to the flood (which isnt covered by homeowners or renters insurance).
We have flood plains in America but you don't have to live there,ASSHOLES!
What's the future economic effect after if it rains as much as predicted?
CBOEtrader says
That's just the beginning of the costs of climate change. Sure, you can't pinpoint climate change as the cause of any single weather event, but we do know that such storms are becoming more common and more severe because of climate change.
This is exactly how the true costs of climate change will be paid for by all the deniers.
www.Da-VS39gdfQ
The once in 500 years flood will be happening during many years of the next century.
www.dMMJnpvL7h4
maybe they shouldn't have left CA?
Dan8267 says
thats just the beginning of the cost of harvey for sure. $100 billion is my back of envelope guess for houston only. The entire southern texas coast was destroyed. San Antonio was flooded as well.
Total damage will probably be over a trillion.
Dan8267 says
Oh my goodness Dan - guess I should have expected it. Yeah this is due to climate change my ass. Let's see the last hurricane to hit was 9 years ago, sure have increased. Get off the soapbox and show some compassion. I AM just outside Houston and (thankfully) and dry, safe and have electricity but thousands and thousands are not so lucky. To blame climate change is a JOKE!!!!
CBOEtrader says
Again, that's only the beginning. Since dumb ass climate change deniers are prevented us from stopping climate change and are preventing us from limiting the severity of it, just so that greedy executives can continue to pollute, there will be many more of these hurricanes causing multi-trillion dollar damage in both infrastructure and lost economic productivity. And that's excluding all the costs of pollution in general.
And these enormous costs to real estate and infrastructure and the lost of productivity is exactly how the economic costs of climate change will be born by the middle class and the taxpayers. They will pay through insurance costs, direct home repairs, lower wages as employers cut costs because of lost productivity, and higher taxes to pay for all the government bailouts. I've said for years that even if you don't give a shit about the environment, you should still care about climate change because of the severe economic costs. Only a fool thinks that spending hundreds of trillions of dollars to increase the profits of corporations by hundreds of millions is a good trade off.
And again, no individual weather event can be traced back to climate change, but statistically we already know that weather events such as these have increased due to climate change. And only a complete idiot would advocate continuing to ignore climate change simply because individual events cannot be traced to it.
Dan8267 says
Will the lunacy ever end? Only a complete idiot would ignore the common man-on-the-street just because a murder cannot be traced to him. Sheesh, the weather is warm, oh it's climate change. The weather is mild, oh it's climate change. The weather is cold, it's climate change. The weather isn't as cold as the last 10 years, it's climate change. The weather is colder than it has been looking back 5 years, it's climate change. And the really, really cool thing ... it's weather, it's climate and we can't do a darn thing about it.
mmmarvel says
I'm glad you are OK MMMarvel.
The damage is significant. I'm confident Trump will do whatever it takes to help Houston, and those who are affected.
Patrick says
I am near Houston also, and we are fine, did not get water into house. It rained like hell, but on flip side there are nearly no deaths (probably less than we would have on highway crashes in 3 days), city emergency people and locals with boats did a nice job in evacuating everyone who needed, and overall all has been not chaotic.
I do not think this is an engineering failure, if anything all this happens because too much area is paved over with damn Yankee/California transplant McMansions. Instead of ponds and streams we have concrete and houses everywhere. Highways here are actualy meant to be flooded to channel water away from houses/businesses (288 and 59 inside city ALWAYS flood and look like streams). And this is the first time in recorded history of this type of flood, much worse that Allison. We can not prepare for an event which is extremely rare.
Dan8267 says
Dan, I appreciate your opinion of climate change and often agree with you - for example, the fact that Earth gets warmer is a scientific FACT and only retards can argue with that. We can argue about the cause or interpretation, but not about the fact.
Having said that, I do not think that cutting CO2 emissions to 0 would have prevented Harvey or more precisely changed its screwed up track, which cause the flood problems. In last 10 yrs we did not get much hurricanes in Gulf, so if the warming would cause them, then we should get MORE of them.
I will be off internets again.
drBu says
This is no time for common sense. We need to panic while we have the opportunity.
mmmarvel says
Let's see. One one hand we have hard-core peer reviewed science showing tens of thousands of independent lines of evidence that man-made climate change is real and that severe storms and flooding are some of the results of climate change. On the other hand we have an anonymous person with zero evidence and credibility making a poorly written statement that climate change is bullshit. I'll go with the scientists over you any day.
Union of Concerned Scientists
The National Climate Assessment
National Wildlife Federation
[stupid comment limit]
National Wildlife Federation
2nd "once in 500 year" flood in 15 years. Yeah Trump, we're getting a lot of once in a 500-year floods.
Extreme Weather Flooding the Midwest Looks a Lot Like Climate Change
EPA
National Geographic
But hey, mmmarvel, keep challenging me on the fact. Every time you do is an opportunity for me to expose your ignorance and deception using real evidence from scientists all over the world and to remind the world that you climate change deniers have absolutely zero evidence excluding debunked false evidence by paid shilled of polluters. So go on, say more. Please.
Comments 1 - 20 of 57 Next » Last » Search these comments