Floods in Venice as further proof of climate change ? How about the flood of 1177 (or 1333 or 1557 or 1740) ?
There's above average snow depth in Northern VT, NH & ME for mid-November. Climate change has it's benefits - like more snow in New England - and that's great for a snow lover like me.
Too old for the slopes, but I'll see you on the XC trails !
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@Dan M
Climate change doesn't benefit the two people in Venice who died. And yes, the floods in Venice are proof of global warming. I live there off and on. The city used to have an occasional high water. Now it's 100 times a year or more, and they're getting worse. High water is caused by combination of scirocco winds and heavy rains, but rising tides caused by climate change are what will sink it. But hey, as long as you get your snow, bro!
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Venice is sinking, it was built on wooden pilings hundreds of years ago. According to the AP sea level has risen 4 inches (100 mm) in the last 50 years. This concurs with NOAA data going back to the 1850's which shows no real accelerated rate. High winds were a major part of the high tide along with full moon. A 1966 flood was 2 1/2" higher than the 6.14 feet (1.87 meter) recorded for this flood.
You might want to call this one bad weather with contributing factors. But you call it call bad weather made worse by climate change it's not in my power to stop you.
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@JoeG - your wording is nicely ambigous about NOAA showing "no real accelerated rate" since it might just be Venice, rather than the rising levels measured in the world's oceans (and connected seas, of course). NOAA data shows real accelerated rate of rise for the world's ocean.
"Is sea level rising?
Yes, sea level is rising at an increasing rate."
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sealevel.html
NASA?
Article with headline "Sea Level Rise is Accelerating"
"Global sea level rise has been accelerating in recent decades, according to a new study based on 25 years of NASA and European satellite data."
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/91746/sea-level-rise-is-accelerating
And this link:
https://phys.org/news/2019-08-global-sea-1960s.html
"The new estimate from tide gauges shows a similar acceleration as recorded by satellites from space over the past 25 years. However, it also demonstrates that rather than coinciding with the advent of satellite altimetry in the early 1990s, the acceleration actually began in the 1960s," adds Carling Hay, a geophysicist at Boston College and co-author of the study. Indeed, the new study suggests that the rate of global sea level rise has increased from slightly less than a millimeter per year in the 1960s to more than 3 millimeter per year today."
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It is interesting to see people just walking or standing around in the deep water. I guess because it is a lagoon the waters are fairly calm with no strong currents? Usually when we see flood footage people are really struggling against wind and currents filled with deadly debris. It is so tragic to see this lovely city continuing to succumb to the sea.
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'“Acqua alta has always been normal,” said Lorenzo Bonometto, an expert on lagoon ecology. But the combined high tide and strong winds made the result “an exceptional event,” he said.'
Listen up, Key West, Miami, and low-lying coastal cities everywhere. It's happening...
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The water isn't getting higher.
Venice is lower. It's sinking. They've been saying so for years.
It's just a very unusual tidal event.
Nothing to see here.
Really. It's happened before.
Stop all that blather about climate change.
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Venice is drowning.
Australia is on fire.
California was on fire. A new fire seemed to start every minute in October. California residents, like me, continue to cough and feel fatigued from residue particulates from the smoke wafting in the air. It is getting harder to breathe.
Universal laws to eliminate our rich carbon diet must begin now, otherwise Armageddon will burn, flood, and hurricane into our fragile future. Will? I meant... is.
It’s very sad people don’t demand change from politicians and utilities rather drive off in their SUV to order a hamburger, while leaving the lights on.
Climate change.
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Trump says he isn't worried about our national debt levels because he won't be around when the bills come due. But, I suspect he would be very concerned about water levels if his Mar-A-Lago or Doral properties were covered in five feet of water today.
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Photo_Caption: "The Italian city is submerged by an exceptionally high tide-highest in 50 years. The mayor has declared a national emergency..."
So is this Venice flood a 'Chinese_Plot', as Mr. Trump, (allegedly...), claims, re all 'climate change' issues, or...are we seeing this latest, serially predicted example of catastrophic climate change, arriving, on schedule exactly, as predicted by multiple scientific disciplines, due, to...
1.) Way, tooooo many hominids / too few resources...
2.) Carbon_based energy-pollution??
My personal Co2-emergency-response includes...
I AVOID flying due to cost, 'airworthiness' concerns, ('737-max' being 1 tacky example), AND...flight pollution.
I eat less meat / may phase, out meat, altogether; this is partly climate, 'N, partly 'carcinogenic_adulterants', (used in corporate farming), related...
I HAVEN'T replaced my most current car...stolen, within the confines, 'O, the 'crime fighting' 49 Pct., (L.O.L.!), amid MUCH LAUGHTER, when I, (TWICE!), attempted to report this theft (circa 1990)!
I/we are childless, in line with observation #1, above... These are NOT huge sacrifices on our part! Meanwhile...I expect Mr. Trump's replacement and ALL future presidents to re-enter / abide by the Paris Climate Agreement!
We'll continue to vote, AGAINST any/all politicians who pretend climate change is NOT an existential threat to...
life!
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@R.G. Frano
China may know something we don't - or be willing to acknowledge what we won't.
Maybe there's a reason for all those empty cities built far inland and China's plans to divert rivers.
Much of China's population along the coast will not have a home with even modest rises in ocean levels.
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"...With damage estimated in the hundreds of millions of euros." Whether it's Venice, Miami or Queensland, we have to believe the money spent on subsequent repairs couldn't be better spent on universal Pre-K or other similar programs that make a difference in one's future.
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In the case of Venice I think it is worth some money to preserve centuries of history, art and architecture. In the cases of Miami and Queensland you have a good point.
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@Peter unfortunately too late now, and the worst is yet to come
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I wonder if Venice will eventually become a legendary sunken city like Atlantis. One of my treasured memories is a trip to Venice a few years ago. It is a beautiful city, a treasure of this world. I hope we can come together as global citizens to help preserve this and other treasures for the next generation.
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I'm not a Denier, but if this also happened 50 yrs ago, of itself, that tends to imply climate change may not be a (significant) cause here.
More data needed.
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@Joel Or, put slightly differently, even as climate change exacerbates these events, if they also happen before the current level of climate change, then we may need to solve both the "baseline" problem and the "climate change exacerbation." Venice has been on notice of this problem for a very, very long time, and there has never been information suggesting the problem would miraculously improve or disappear with time.
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@Joel - Venice has sunken, the sea has risen, the weather has changed, California is burning. What more data do you need?
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Time to stop all cruise ships from Venice. Better yet, the Mediterranean. Even better yet, all over the world. Cruise ships pollute at a much higher rate, using a very dirty fuel, causing climate change at a much greater degree.
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@YReader ..Yes,the Planet doesn't need cruise ships at all,least of all in Venice !
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I have been on a cruise and enjoyed it but you are right, the world does not need cruise ships and there is no excuse for them to pollute the way they do.
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The MOSE project would have stopped or reduced this flood.
Planning started in 1987(!).....construction began in 2003(!).
Still isn't finished.
Look how long it took to rebuild Venice's "Fenice" opera house after the fire.
The Italian government makes even New York City's government look efficient by comparison.
Or am I missing something here?
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Until the water is lapping at Trump's feet as he sits on the golden throne in Mar-a-Lago, the U.S. will officially pretend this is not happening.
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@Cary Maybe, but why is this particular problem something that the US should care about in particular, as compared, for example, to sea level rise all over the rest of the globe, or any other global problem?
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This wasn't even a storm. This is what Miami Beach is going to look like (sans Saint Marcos Cathedral).
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@Steve If that's the case, we should stop subsidizing flood insurance for the rich people who live in those flood-prone waterfront areas.
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@Liberty hound - You are dead right. You are not going to be able to insure against some of these disasters.
Today, we've had the cold arctic air push into the Central Plains down to the Southeast. Had this been spring, the frost damage to agriculture would have been tremendous.
Now we spend time keeping our fingers crossed winter, spring, summer and fall hoping that a climate event doesn't effect us.
I recommend the book, The Uninhabitable Earth, LIFE AFTER WARMING By DAVID WALLACE-WELLS.
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Welcome to our world.
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The fires in Australia and the flooding in Venice has everyone in a tizzy over climate change. Perhaps that is justified, I don'r know, but it is helpful to get some historical perspective.
On Venice I suggest this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acqua_alta
On Australian Bush fires I suggest this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushfires_in_Australia
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@gbc1 Historically, Queensland has hardly ever had bushfires. I have lived here for 30 years and it is only the past two years, we have seen such events. It is the first times rainforests have burnt. This is not normal. This is climate change.
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When will the "climate factor" finally hit community real estate markets (e.g., coastal cities, Midwest farms, the state of California)?
Is this one of the disasters that states and local governments need to be prepared for?
When the music stops, whether due to unaffordable flood insurance or back-to-back wildfires or hurricanes, and people are desperate to sell into a non-existent buyers market, plummeting property values will erase as much wealth as a big drop in the stock market, except...
...most regular folks hold their wealth in home equity, not stocks. Then, look out below because no Congress will bail out homeowners en masse.
And what about the relatively safer U.S. regions with more reliable power and water, and fewer recent disasters? In a market-based economy with minimal government interference, the scales could tip towards these areas far too quickly for growth to be handled wisely; for services to be increased proportionately, for transportation routes to be expanded, and for housing to be constructed without eliminating scarce farmland and protecting aquifers.
As I listen to our government and media turning us against each other, I wonder if we will even care? I will.
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The issue of climate change is two-pronged, the first issue being the cause(s), which is the issue that gets all the attention. But it's the other issue that is getting second shrift, and it is probably the more important issue, practically speaking. And that is how we are preparing for the consequences of the change.
Communities and local governments continue to allow developers to build on land that simply cannot sustain the population pressure (for example, areas where wildfires are common, shorelines that continue to erode, lowlands that flood more and more often as water levels rise and catastrophic rainfall increases in volume. Zoning, construction standards, population size over a given land area, all these things must be addressed, as well as the creation of infrastructure that will allow us to weather the changes in the coming years of OUR lifetimes, as well as those of our descendants, who will inherit both the lands and the problems.
There also need to be plans to address the issue of climate refugees - people driven out of certain geographic areas by recurring catastrophic events. How will our communities, our nations, address the influx of these people, who will likely show up with NO resources whatsoever?
What concrete pro-active plans has YOUR community produced to address the consequences of what we know IS happening, regardless of why it is happening?
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The beginning of the end for Venice, and other cities and countries vulnerable to sea rise and flooding. Diseases and infections will quickly follow when sewage enters the water systems.
Not sure what it will take-if anything, to make swift and far reaching changes to combat climate change.
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Re: "...Not sure what it will take-if anything, to make swift and far reaching changes to combat climate change..." {@Colleen}
The answer is as obvious as it is (politically), difficult:
We either change our carbon_based / corporate_profit worshiping ways or...we learn, to 'talk, shop', with dinosaurs, passenger pigeons, 'N, other extinct species!
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Of all the cities around the world I have been fortunate to have visited, Venice is my favorite. The entire city is a museum. Canaletto’s paintings of Venice done in the 17th century exhibit structures in Venice easily recognized to this very day. A truly marvelous experience.
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@Marvin
It is! Venice is one of my favorites too. And you are right, Canaletto's paintings are like photographs still recognizable this day. La città è davvero un'opera d'arte!
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@sara andrea
Si, molto bene.
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Climate change, like we have any control. For every lump of coal we don’t burn an added child is excess is born to contribute whatever carbon dioxide reduction may have been.
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Re: '...Climate change, like we have any control..." {@John Doe}
Climate change can still, be interrupted to a point where hominid, 'N, other life continues, or, as I previously noted, above...
We can hang, out with (other), extinct species!
Are you 'Hominid' or 'Ferengi'*, Mr. Doe?
*{'Ferengi' refers to a fictional hominid_species (star-trek), who literally worship wealth_accumulation, in a manner reminiscent of Xian_Evangelicals... here, a more detailed explanation / pics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi)
Fake News? You must mean, the Perfect Storm! 50 years or any number of years, this nonsense does NOT work now that there is Climate Ruin everywhere. Get it straight for once, or is it all fake news. We do NOT return to our posts.
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It tells you everything you need to know about Trump and all his cognates in other countries that they won't sit down for some number of days with scientists and learn everything the scientists know about climate change. It may be that things like the Green New Deal are too late, and we may need to be working on the resettlement plans. My wife and I are oldish and have no kids. My cousin and his wife believe Trump can do no wrong. They live near Tampa and rode out the last big hurricane because their community is some number of feet above sea level. I can understand not evacuating, but their conclusion seems to be that they'll never get flooded out. Maybe not, but they could be living on an atoll with no particular reason to be there unless you're a fisherman. I told them they really should think carefully about the lives of their grandchildren and beyond when they vote next year. They basically told me I'm a crank. At least know what you're dealing with before you make a decision.
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The new surge water barriers being built to protect Venice from these wind-driven high tides will be complete in 2022. They will spare Venice the "acqua alta" that has plagued it for centuries.
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“The worst flooding in 50 years”
Oh, you mean the same thing happened 50 years ago? Before the sea levels started to rise? Hmmm.
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So sad. My wife and I spent 3 days there in Oct. 2018. Ten days after we left, Venice experienced what was then the worst flooding in decades--53" tides flooding 3/4 of the city. This one is 20" higher. To get an idea what it's like, this is video footage from the 2018 flood, the result of high tide and a simultaneous storm:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TVPEyup6bg
A local resident told us the permanent population of Venice has dropped from 200,000 to 50,000. That's partly because of flooding, and most of the residential property is now lucrative tourist rentals.
The future of Venice is not bright, and the levee system they envisioned has failed due to an insurmountable problem with barnacles. No kidding. Tragically, this world heritage site will likely disappear beneath the Adriatic.
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I’m not a climate change denier but I am a geologist who looks at events such as this critically. Venice is subsiding and always has. Until 2000 the city pumped fresh ground water out which accelerated its slow inevitable subsidence.
In my geology classes we used to discuss whether a particular sedimentary sequence was due to sea level rise or subsidence. Not as easy as you might think to sort out.
The Scripps Institute in San Diego estimates Venice has subsided 0.5 - 0.8 inches per year from 2000 - 2010. That’s substantial.
Blaming the flooding of Venice solely on climate change is disingenuous and gives the naysayers fodder to deny the science.
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@Dave Bee -- as a geologist, why do you claim that an article that mentions subsidence and climate change is "Blaming the flooding of Venice solely on climate change"
Did you miss this clear passage in the article:
"While flooding is a complex phenomenon with many causes, the effects of climate change on sea-level rise, and the intense rainfall that comes with the greater capacity of a warming atmosphere to hold more moisture, are increasingly recognized as factors that can boost natural variation in weather patterns.
There is also the added fact that Venice is sinking."
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@Dave Bee If subsidence is the bigger factor in subsuming Venice than rising sea levels, what can be done to save this historic city?
Can substrate, or water, be pumped below building foundations, essentially to raise the city?
It certainly won't be cheap, but otherwise, the city will have to be either abandoned or Venicians will have to do what they've done in the past, relocate their first floors one story higher, and all the plaza and bridges too.
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@Dave Bee
I am not a climate change denier either but the same is true with the bush fires in Australia.
See this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushfires_in_Australia
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“We can’t get the pumps to work because they are underwater,” the mayor said.
I can’t stop laughing at the hilarity of that statement.
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@Kevin Greene Laugh at this tragedy? How sad.....
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Won't have to worry about tourism ruining the city anymore, it is toast just on its own.
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This summer was brutal to the north glaciers and that water ain't freezing back any time soon. Our history is sinking. Our present is next.
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I weep to think of losing St.Marks, which is truly one of the most astonishing sights in Europe.
How on earth can those mosaics possible survive the damage all that creeping, not to mention, filthy water, is doing behind the walls that support them?
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@EK - Truth is, nothing can be done. Whether it is St. Marks or the NY Subway, nothing can be done. And I'm referring to the tunnel damage to the NY Subway from Hurricane Sandy.
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Venice is unique. Venice is gorgeous. Walk along the Zattere at sunset in late April and May, look in one direction to see the huge orange disk lower and hover turning water and buildings into a pink glow, and then turn to see the moon rising simultaneously. You can't keep the tide out during acqua alta, but you can keep the cruise ships out. The politicians are willing to trade the stability of the city for a docking fee. Dredging the Grand Canal to deepen it to allow oil tankers to pass through did much to undermine this most fragile and romantic city. The cruise ships create wake, block vistas, and disgorge 4,000 people who will buy a few trinkets and eat and sleep on the ship. And, the U.S. has a president who denies global warming. Warming will only hasten Venice's demise.
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@an observer Yes, certainly if the current US president would only believe in climate change, Venice would be able to avert a disaster many centuries, if not millenia, in the making.
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@george Perhaps the takeaway should not be political, but realistic. The climate IS changing, there are few that would debate that issue at this point. It has changed in the past, and will no doubt change in the future.
The point is to take concrete steps to prepare for the changes that will happen in the near future, changes that will drastically affect our own lives and those of our descendents, instead of spending ALL of our energy arguing about the cause. We argue back and forth about the science, but we seem to be completely overlooking the fact that there are real consequences happening right now, and they will continue to happen, no matter what the cause is. Let's agree to continue the research and discussion about causes and meanwhile get real about what we can do about the effects.
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@george:
Straw man argument, george.
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We already have naysayers saying the current cold snap in the USA is proof that climate change is a hoax. What will they say to dismiss this and other unprecedented flooding around the world? Not to mention the die off of scallops around Long Island, shrimp off the coast of Maine and oysters in the Mississippi Delta? How many warning signals must Mother Nature send before these naysayers get the message?
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@John Warnock Uh, no oysters in the Mississippi delta, though there may be some left off the MS coast....
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The images of Venice submerged by the waters that are going around the world will help to understand, better than a thousand words and studies, where we are going? And will they serve to push us to act now?
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Should we feign surprise?
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@PDT Exactly. As noted in the article, this event almost repeats the floods in 1966. For the past 53 years, Venice has not acted enough to address the issue, and the result is completely expected. Sure, there are broader global climate issues in this story, but there is also the issue of what Venice will do, or not do, on its own and for itself.
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The future's not looking too bright.
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@Kevin - No need for shades then?
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Unfortunately, it may be too late. Like King Canute learned, water will come and no power on earth will save the Serenissima. Climate change can't be reversed right away. It's like moving a ton of marble. It has it's own dynamic once it is put in motion and reversal will take many decades if we begin today. Too late I think for the fragile vaults and buildings.
Also, people will need to find shelter and food short term.
Next cities are Miami, lower Manhattan, Amsterdam.. any city on the cost with a low elevation.
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