Re:California Megastorm
by allears on Sunday August 14, 2022 @08:20PM
(#32464457)
Daniel Swain is the current superstar climate scientist who was featured in the New York Times and writes a lot of pop science explanations of abstruse climatological concepts. He also has solid credentials and publishes accurate long-range forecasts on his WeatherWest California blog. When Daniel speaks, it's a good idea to listen.
Maybe don't full on bring it on because it will be a disaster, but... if anyone wants to learn how to make this not be quite such a huge problem, they can familiarize themselves with the hydrology concepts covered in the youtube channels of Andrew Millison, Brad Lancaster, John D. Liu, Geoff Lawton. There has been a ton of quality work already done, and it has been well documented.
tldr - megaflood can be prevented by building earthen berms throughout the landscape to catch, spread, and sink rainwater runoff into the ground, thereby recharging aquifers and preventing catastrophic flooding.
Re:California Megastorm
by umeshunni on Sunday August 14, 2022 @09:06PM
(#32464736)
Summary of the paper:
Despite the recent prevalence of severe drought, California faces a broadly underappreciated risk of severe floods. Here, we investigate the physical characteristics of “plausible worst case scenario” extreme storm sequences capable of giving rise to “megaflood” conditions using a combination of climate model data and high-resolution weather modeling. Using the data from the Community Earth System Model Large Ensemble, we find that climate change has already doubled the likelihood of an event capable of producing catastrophic flooding, but larger future increases are likely due to continued warming. We further find that runoff in the future extreme storm scenario is 200 to 400% greater than historical values in the Sierra Nevada because of increased precipitation rates and decreased snow fraction. These findings have direct implications for flood and emergency management, as well as broader implications for hazard mitigation and climate adaptation activities.
Re:California Megastorm
by AareyBaba on Sunday August 14, 2022 @08:27PM
(#32464490)
Major floods in the Sacramento Valley take place every 100 to 200 years according to sediment cores. Based on this evidence, scientists predict that the next major flood event in California is due in the next 40 years. Los Angeles streets will be under water, tornados will destroy Santa Monica pier and there are sharks everywhere.
I think the general thought is that they will be similar events, just more severe. It's not as if we've entered into a parallel universe, just the same one with more extremes on the low and high end of things.
rather than the sensationalized article that has sentences like "rain will pummel cities"
New York: another reason why you shouldn’t live in California!
tldr - megaflood can be prevented by building earthen berms throughout the landscape to catch, spread, and sink rainwater runoff into the ground, thereby recharging aquifers and preventing catastrophic flooding.
Despite the recent prevalence of severe drought, California faces a broadly underappreciated risk of severe floods. Here, we investigate the physical characteristics of “plausible worst case scenario” extreme storm sequences capable of giving rise to “megaflood” conditions using a combination of climate model data and high-resolution weather modeling. Using the data from the Community Earth System Model Large Ensemble, we find that climate change has already doubled the likelihood of an event capable of producing catastrophic flooding, but larger future increases are likely due to continued warming. We further find that runoff in the future extreme storm scenario is 200 to 400% greater than historical values in the Sierra Nevada because of increased precipitation rates and decreased snow fraction. These findings have direct implications for flood and emergency management, as well as broader implications for hazard mitigation and climate adaptation activities.