Eastern Canada has just experienced extreme flooding. What struck me from watching people trying to hold back the flood waters is that we do it pretty much the same way it was done a hundred (two hundred?) years ago: shoveling sand into bags an piling them up. You'd think we'd have come up with a better method by now. They can send a man to the moon, but we still have to shovel sand into bags.
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"The Iowa Flood Center estimates that what was once considered a 500-year flood in Iowa City is now an 80-year flood"... If this can be verified by the Feds, than FEMA needs to redo the "100-yr" flood plain maps, at a minimum. This would give the local folks a "heads-up" about the current state of the flood plain and possibly more funding from required flood insurance that is based on those 100-yr designations.
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The Coralville Lake upstream was completed in the 1950s. Since then sedimentation has occurred that reduces the amount of water the lake can hold for flood control purposes. Same thing has been happening to most if not all of the flood control lakes built in the 40s through 70s.
With increased rainfall and runoff, I think it’s time for a national infrastructure repair project for flood control.
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I love the way the author cites to other NY Times pieces to back his assertion that hurricanes are getting wetter and wildfires bigger.
Rubbish. Those are projections of what climate scientists believe will happen IF the world gets warmer. But so far there is no evidence for either point.
As for the flooding at Iowa. Who knows? There are likely many reasons for that large amount of flooding, and it may have been unprecedented in the history of the university at that location, but unprecedented in the 150 years, 300 years? Who was keeping records back then.
Under any circumstances if you build near rivers, you should understand one thing. They flood. If you live near the ocean, there are storms. They bring flooding. It's not rocket science. But attributing a given flood to climate change is ridiculous. The only way you can announce that climate change has led to more flooding is to track floods over a long period -- say a couple of hundred years . If you show a statistically significant increase in frequency/intensity of floods -- even then you have to factor out things like river management, development, subsidence before you can announce "climate change did it."
It's wise to build flood resistant buildings in floodplains. But it's not wise to try and blame every weather event on climate change -- particularly when it's pure speculation.
5
@Ralphie, I wrote the story, and what you're saying gives the wrong impression of it. First, I'm not sure you actually read the story; if you had, you'd have seen that I explain that flooding is a complicated phenomenon, with many causes, but climate change is increasingly a part of that. My sources were scientists, including those at the Iowa Flood Center. Second, about those links. I cited NYT stories that dive into the science of climate change at greater depth than I had room for in the story. The links are great starting points to find the science. And as any many, many climate scientists will tell you, the effects are already being felt, like Friederike Otto in this recent story: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/climate/global-warming-drought-human-influence.html
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@John Schwartz
NOAA's Atlas 14 mapping makes it clear that precipitation levels are changing. I think your article does a good job of describing the new reality.
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@John Schwartz I read your article here & the two you referenced. Both of the cited articles are sketchy. The one re hurricanes talks about one hurricane. The scientist referenced says that the waters of the eastern gulf have warmed -- and we believe humans have made the waters warmer. Great. How much warmer, and how much did humans contribute. Also note that the temps for areas on the gulf haven't warmed much if at all -- except FLorida (ex panhandle) which has undergone huge urbanization since 1900.
Your article you say that flooding is complex but cc is increasingly becoming part of the mix. But the question is, how much? If floods have increased (evidence?) the question is -- how much is due to warming, and of that how much is due to man made factors. How much variance does it account for. Vague generalizations mean nothing. Nor do computer simulations.
As for warmer temps means the air can hold more moisture -- sure -- so in theory you should see more precipitation in warmer years. But you might be surprised to know the correlation between USA temps and precipitation is zero and the r between avg max temps and precip is negative. You can drill down to the state level and find the same thing. For Iowa, the r between max temps and precip is negative.
And do you disagree with my point on what needs to hold analytically to associate flooding with CC?
Temps are cyclical. And there is a lot of noise in our historical temp record.
4
Perhaps the greatest lesson from this event should be that there is no such thing as an 'unfathomable' natural disaster. Look at the whole of history, not just recorded history, and you will see examples of natural events that changed geography and expunged cultures. Even recorded history carries warnings: a 500 year old building destroyed by an avalanche.
There is a particular warning here for the people who want the community to act to physically protect coastal structures in an era of rising sea levels. The laws of physics mean that nature will bypass any fringe barrier. The only solution is to halt the man-made rise in sea level.
The same constraints apply to flooding rivers.
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@Philip Brown
No, the only solution is to stop building so close to flood prone bodies of water. We may be able to slow the man made rise in sea level, which varies from place to place, BTW, but we are long past the point where we can completely forestall it.
8
Like Mr. Guckert, it is time that we all learned that nature will win. We are an arrogant lot though. But she will win.
15
I grew up near the Missouri, but never realized it would see the effects of climate change. The river is a powerful force. Higher temps mean air holds more water and high temps in the arctic mess with the jet stream so storms last longer. Everything we've built over decades could be lost in an hour. Midwesterners have been skeptical about climate change and its catastrophic effects because for decades Fox News hasn't wanted them to know. Fox has given 70% of its airtime on climate change to science deniers. As a result, Congress has refused to outlaw polluting the atmosphere with heat-trapping gasses, and Trump is busy undoing all the progress Obama made, and the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is over 400 PPM forever and rising. Rapidly. Maybe after looking out over their ruined farms and flooded towns and universities they will stop watching Fox News and understand that science is not a liberal hoax. Then, we could start working together to both fight climate change -- and prepare for it.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/oct/23/climate-change-climate-change-scepticism
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Maybe the lesson that needs to be learned is not to build on river flood plains or next to the ocean surface -- unless high on a stone ledge that is not at risk of being undermined. Of course, as long as government subsidized insurance encourages it, people will do it. They like the view in tranquil weather.
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I lost a home within walking distance of the arts campus (just upstream) in that flood. The changes that have been made, including raising the Park Road Bridge so that floodwaters do not again rise high enough for the bridge to have a damming effect, will help. Not having a coffer dam partially blocking the river near the Union will help. Having a slightly more reactive outflow strategy by the Corps of Engineers at the Coralville Reservoir WOULD help.
But Iowa City will see future floods as our weather systems get more intense. It's been eleven years, and even now, the snow-melt bulges in the rivers are meeting the spring and early summer rains. Iowa City and the University perhaps has some of the most creative teams working on flood recovery and protection. There is no such thing as flood prevention.
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In the 1960s, I attended graduate school for a year in Iowa City, the dear old SUI. The university has suffered a huge loss. But it has resources to match.
One, it has a large alumni base who would, I'm sure, come to its aid.
Two, the university has a large number of young, energetic, student body. The students should be offered 3-4 hours of course credit for a few hours of weekly labor service to the campus.
I'm in my 70s now, but I would love to come back for a week or so. Would be fun to render my bit of manual service and have beer and pizza at the good old Airliner, though sadly without the company of numerous old friends.
I hope the university can give us a place to sleep in the old Quad for the short duration we are there.
AKC, Washington, DC.
21
I grew up in St. Louis, with a family farm 50 miles north of St. Louis and 6 miles west of the Mississippi River. I was intimately aware of the river and the flood plains and the hill country. I came East to college in 1957 and fell in love with a New Englander. We will celebrate 60th wedding anniversary in September 2019. Back in the days when my Mom and Dad and I farmed cattle and hung out in the little railroad towns at the edge of the hills, overlooking the flood plains, no one, NO ONE, built anything on the flood plain. Instead the flood plain was for growing corn. All the barns, all the houses, all the businesses were up in the hills. The train tracks ran along the edge of the hills. Of course those choices were made before a lot of federal money was available for flood insurance and before engineers and architects thought they could win against the river.
Humans may again have to recognize their limits. It's actually ok to remember that a flood plain has a purpose: hold that water while it drains down to the Gulf of Mexico.
It's really ok to live with the realities of earth, wind, and water.
We are not separate from this wonderful world, but part of it.
85
I worked at the Iowa Advanced Technology building (known as IATL) many years ago as a graduate student, and while I was no longer working there in 2008 I heard the horror stories from many of my friends.
Climate change is real, but looks like we are still spending considerable energy on debating the issue and not what to do about it.
32
Climate change is deadly serious.
Infrastructure experts know it.
Operations professionals know it.
Insurers know it. Reinsurers know it big time.
Corporate risk managers know it.
National security experts know it.
NOAA knows it. NASA knows it.
The real estate industry is figuring it out. Supply chain experts, too.
Only Trump and Trump supporters don't know it.
Ah, but the Green New Deal -- that's hilarious to them. Democrats are gonna ban cows.
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For many years, adaptation has been the red-headed step child of climate change. Many climate scientists and activists did not want to speak of it, as it "wasn't solving the problem". Now we know that even if we stopped emitting all climate forcing gases immediately, we are still in for a couple centuries of continued climate change. That means that we will continue to see warmer, wetter, and wilder weather for generations to come. Expertise like this will be critical in the coming years if we are to salvage our civilization. What this article shows is that we can adapt to what we know is coming - which we must regardless of how successful we are at mitigation.
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@Multimodalmama
Adaptation is indeed going to be needed but the most significant adaptation - population reduction - is never mentioned. Until global population stabilises at no more than 6 billion the demand for space will swamp any physical adaptations.
12
The large School of Music that was part of the performance arts facility was also devastated by this flood. 22" entered the first floor, which quickly turned to mold that found its way into the asbestos-ridden interstitial space above. I lost my Steinway D, but saved original manuscripts in the mad rush to beat the rising waters. From what we were told, it was cheaper to rebuild than repair. As idyllic as our original location was, my colleagues and I are now overjoyed to be working from the center of Iowa City, a block from town meets gown and near to students and community members who flock to our concerts. We teach and perform in a top-drawer facility that is the envy of the nation.
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@David, as a native Iowa City resident and graduate of the University of Iowa, I was surprised the music school wasn't mentioned in this story. The opportunity to rebuild to fulfill better planning visions and facilitate superior economic development opportunities and cultural arts in a downtown setting is a major theme left out.
I've since had a chance to tour the new music building and it is beautiful. It's a powerful lesson how the University is enabling the expansion of downtown across a major arterial street that for so long acted as a barrier.
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