This Is The Year Of The Floods, And It Will Only Get Worse With Climate Change

Flash flood damage in Sutton, Vermont on July 10.
This summer has brought an extraordinary
number of flash floods to the U.S. Get used to it,
as this is the new climate change normal. 

The news of deadly, terrible floods have been coming at us pretty much daily lately.

It's the Summer Of Floods.  

And I'll get this out of the way right now. Yes, climate change is much share in the blame for all this.   A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture than a cooler air. That extra warm air moisture is increasingly wrung out in extreme fashion if a summertime weather disturbance bumps into it. 

The Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico are both warmer than average, due again in large part due to climate change. Some of that warmer water evaporates into the air, which flows inland as exceptionally humid air, ripe for producing extraordinary downpours.

This isn't going away. And neither is the death, heartache, hardship and sadness the floods bring. Moreover, we're not ready for these things, and not ready for when they get worse. Which will happen.

On top of all that, the political climate in the U.S., such as it is, is not at all conducive for dealing with our new reality. 

What follows is our situation, and it isn't pretty.  

THE FLOODS

July began with the extreme Texas floods that are known to have killed at least 135 people.  Floods and debris flows swept Ruidoso, New Mexico on July 8, killing three people.  Another four people died in North Carolina flooding on July 6.

Davenport, Iowa endured a flash flood emergency on July 11. Another huge flash flood hit New Jersey and the New York City metro area on July 14 claiming an additional two lives. Flash flooding from five inches of rain returned to parts of New Jersey on July 20.  

Other dramatic floods have hit the western Chicago suburbs (July 8 ), the Kansas City area (July 17) parts of Virginia, (July. 18), the northern suburbs of Washington DC on July 19 and Overland Park, Kansas on July 21, where one person died. 

 In the United States, flood deaths last year and this year are far above the annual average of 85. In 2024, the U.S. saw 145 flood-related deaths.  The nation saw at least that many deaths from flooding just this month, never mind the whole year.   

The sheer number of floods this month have been staggering. 

Through mid-month, the National Weather Service had issued more flash flood warnings in the United States than in any year since at least 1986. When I last checked a couple days ago it was at least 3,360 such warnings and counting. 

Here in Vermont, we've so far escaped the worst of it, but we've still dealt with damaging flash floods this year. On May 17, there was quite a bit of flash flooding in towns like Warren, Waitsfield and White River Junction. 

Parts of the Northeast Kingdom were slammed by flash floods on July 10, seriously damaging some homes and several roads. 

TOO WET, TOO WARM

The bottom line of this summer is it's been too warm, and especially too humid. 

Per the Washington Post

"A Washington Post analysis of atmospheric data found a record amount of moisture flowing in the skies over the past year and a half, largely due to rising global temperatures. 

With so much warm, moist air to fuel storms, they are increasingly able to move water vapor from the oceans to locations hundred of miles from the coast, triggering flooding for which most inland communities are ill-prepared.

'We're living in a climate that we've never seen, and it keeps throwing us curveballs,' said Kathie Dell, North Carolina's state climatologist. 'How do you plan for the worst thing you've never seen?'" 

Most places aren't ready for this new, wet reality. Many coastal areas have elaborate systems to evacuate people and bolster defenses against severe storms and hurricanes, which have always been a hazard near the shore.

Each tiny green box in this map is one of the flash flood
warnings issued between January 1 and July 18 this year
Source: The Weather Network. 

Inland states, cities and towns are not as prepared for the extremes like the newly ferocious floods that now strike places like they did in western North Carolina during last September's Hurricane Helene, and the tragic floods in the Texas Hill Country in early July. 

We keep hearing these floods described as one in 1000 year events. That means there's just a 0.1 percent chance of that event happening in that place in any given year. 

However as CNN explains:

"But climate change is losing the dice in favor of extreme precipitation. 

'When we talk about e.g. 1,000 year events, we're talking about the likelihood of these events in the absence of human-caused warming (i.e, how often we would expect the from natural variability alone),' said climate scientist Michael Mann of the University of Pennsylvania. 'These events are of course much more frequent 'because' of human-caused warming,' he said in an email."

As the Washington Post points out, for every 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming air is capable of holding 7 percent more moisture. 

That moisture has to go somewhere. Hence the floods,  Some climate scientists also increasingly think weather patterns can get "stuck" in place more often, due to climate change. 

CNN continues:

"A recent study Mann worked on found such weather patterns have tripled in incidence since the mid-with century during the summer months. The problem is these patterns are 'not necessarily well captured in climate models' he said. This increases uncertainty about future projections for extreme weather events."

WHAT TO DO?

This trend toward more and worse floods will only continue. 

Sure, some summers in the United States and elsewhere will be drier than this one.  A few future summers will feature punishing droughts. After all, depending on the prevailing weather patterns of the season, winds could come from dry sources like central Mexico, or the Desert Southwest. 

But overall, we are now permanent stuck in a world that floods more easily and more dramatically than ever before. And it will get worse.

We are not ready for that. 

As the Washington Post quoted:

"'Any given community can't know if it's going to be the next one that's going to  have a flood that is orders of magnitude larger than the largest flood they've known,' said disaster researcher Rachel Hogan Carr, who co-chairs a World Meteorological Organization project aimed at improving flood warnings. 'But we must all know now that we should be prepared.'"

One reason so many people died in Hurricane Helene - and the mega flood earlier this month in Texas, is that people couldn't imagine things would get that bad. And plans were not necessarily in place to deal with it. 

In western North Carolina, perhaps not enough people fled from the impending danger from the floods, as the Washington Post reported:

 "Though the National Weather Service correctly predicted that the flooding would be deadly, the warnings from local authorities were not forceful or specific enough to sway residents who never imagined a hurricane could hurt them so far from the sea."

The same problem came with the Texas flood. Meteorologists accurate predicted the torrential rains that brought the floods. But authorities didn't order evacuations in many of the hardest hit areas. And warnings didn't reach many until it was too late to flee. Some of those people died. 

The lesson: Detailed disaster plans need to be established, ones that take the warnings from the National Weather Service and get them to the people who need to hear them. And somehow, the public needs to be trained to heed these flash flood warnings, and know how to get out of the way quickly. 

I'm not optimistic we can get there anytime soon, given the Trump-era cutbacks and the National Weather Service and their laissez-faire approach to emergency management.   

THE AFTERMATH

For flood survivors, the mega floods leave incredible destruction that threaten the very existence of their communities.  

An example is Ellicott City, Maryland, a charming, old small city not far west of Baltimore, was devastated three times within a decade, first in 2011, then an even worse flash flood in 2016 and then the worst of them all in 2018,  

Once again, it rained hard in Ellicott City a couple weeks ago and the dreaded flash flood warnings were issued. Nearly 3.5 inches of rain pounded the community within three hours on July 13. Another 1.5 inches fell in less than an hour the next day. That's close to the amount of rain that devastated Ellicott City in 2018.

"When it rains like it did Monday and Sunday, a wave of fear comes over business owner Cindi Ryland told CBS Baltimore. 'What we go through here every time it rains, we all just hold our breath,' Ryland said. 'It's frightening, but we're here and we're resilient."

This time, the water caused only minor damage,  But only because of some painful and very expensive redesigns and rethinking in Ellicott City. 

Per CBS Baltimore: 

"The projects include five retention ponds, two of which are complete, and two water conveyance project, Those include a series of culverts under Maryland Avenue and the North Tunnel project

The third retention pond is expected to be up and running in the fall. The North Tunnel is expected to be complete by fall 2027 while the culvert are in their final design stage"

The changes already completed were apparently enough to prevent another catastrophic flood in Ellicott City this time.  

But the project came at a big financial and community loss, Ellicott City had to tear down four historic buildings. The cost is estimated at $130 million, which includes a $75 million loan from the federal Environmental Protection Agency and $20 million from the state of Maryland. 

This is just one community. Imagine how much it will cost to project dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of communities from the new flood regime we're under. 

There's echoes of Ellicott City parallels Vermont communities like Barre, hit hard by floods in both 2023 and 2024.

The 2023 flood damage 350 properties were damaged. Barre, among other things has been looking at buyouts.. Sixty-seven property owners jumped at the chance to sell their flood-prone properties. 

Those properties would be razed, and the remaining land would just become open floodplain. Maybe parks or farmland, but no houses, no commercial structures. 

This type of buyout, though, is painful to the communities involved. With each demolished house, Barre would lose some of its tax base. Right when the cash-strapped city is also trying to pay for flood recovery. 

It got so bad, that Barre rejected some applications for the buyouts. Barre's city manager said approving all the buyouts would  have gotten rid of roughly $280,000 in property tax revenue. 

Barre isn't a rich little city either, About a quarter of the residents are at or below the poverty level. Plus Barre needs more housing, not less. At last report, the city rejected 40 of the 27 buyout requests. 

Now imagine how many Barres are out there. It's challenging!  

NO TRUMP HELP

To make things worse, the Trump administration is clawing back money set for these flood mitigation projects. Basically, since Trump doesn't think climate change exists, there's no need for the funding. 

It also interesting that Trump signed this into law back in 2018 and now he's dumping the idea 

Virtually all climate scientists disagree with Trump, but the narcissist in chief insists he's always right, so there you go.

Anyway, 20 states, including Vermont, are suing the Trump administration's  decision a couple  months back to end a multi-billion dollar federal program that helps communities gird themselves against future floods as Vermont Public reports.   

The program is called Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC). It covered as much as 90 percent of the cost of things like restoring floodplains, expanding and improving culverts and bridges and protecting wastewater and drinking water treatment plants  

 It looks like Vermont was supposed to get about $5 million in funding through BRIC this year to fund 36 projects around the state.  

So, the floods are going to continue and get worse, and the tools are being taken away from us to deal with that wet future.

Everything is backwards these days.  

More Examples Of How People Need To Keep Reacting, Recovery From Climate Disasters Long After The Event

Hardwick Vermont got nearly $4 million in FEMA
money to shore up the town after two devastating floods.

Three recent new series stories here in Vermont show how the work after a climate disaster continues long after the initial crisis.  

The Town of Hardwick just got a boatload of money to shore up the town after flood damage nearly a year and a half ago. Per VTDigger:

The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency has awarded more than $3.9 million to the town of Hardwick for July, 2023-related flood repairs and mitigation, the most of any municipality in the state. 

A $2.7 million chunk goes to fixing a retaining wall along Main Street in Hardwick that's adjacent to the Lamoille River. Town Manager David Upson said the retaining wall needs to be repaired and fast, or "The whole street could be washed down the river," he said. 

Another chunk of the money is going toward a Hardwick bridge that was hit twice. Flooding destroyed the bridge in July, 2023. It was rebuilt, only to be destroyed again a year later. The FEMA money is going toward engineering and architectural work to come up with a permanent, flood-resilient bridge. 

All this goes to show how expensive it is to recover from a climate-related disaster.  I'm not arguing the Hardwick money wasn't necessary. It clearly was. But $4 million for just one small Vermont town. Multiple that by the hundreds of more likely thousands of towns and cities across the United States that need help recovering from these events. 

RAISING THE HOUSE

Repeated climate disaster floods are changing what Vermont's traditional towns and villages look like, even if the changes involve structures not totally destroyed by the flooding. 

The result, at least in the Mad River Valley, is a historic old house that now frankly looks weird, but because of the repeated flooding, the owners really had no choice. 

This 19th century house in Moretown, Vermont
is being raised to keep it above future flood levels.
The home has been flooded several times in recent
years by the nearby Mad River. Photo from the
Valley Reporter. 

Per WCAX:

"Howland Brown, who along with Beki Auclair, lives on a section of the river in Moretown. Their home, which dates back to 1834, took on five feet of water during Tropical Storm Irene. History repeated itself with back-to-back devastating flood this year and last.

They considered moving. 'Then we'd be passing the problem over to the next owner. Even if they were aware going in, we just couldn't square that,' Brown said."

The house was raised up on hydraulic jacks, so now it sits atop a tall concrete structure that is designed to allow water to pass through it. 

As WCAX points out, we're seeing more and more of this type of construction, or  home buyouts in which the federal government buys homes in flood prone areas, demolishes them and leaves the land undeveloped as part of a flood plain. 

Frankly, the house does look a little odd now, a traditional, antique 19th century hope perched atop a monolith of modern concrete. Once the work is done, the house will be lowered on its foundation, so it will be two and a half feet lower than it is now 

But it's necessary, as we have to adapt any way we can to our changing, stormier, warmer climate. The face of the state's communities is slowly changing because of it.  

The concrete area will have room to park two cars and for storage of nonessential items. According to the Valley Reporter, the couple is paying for the work themselves. It will also mean the house will be high enough so that they won't be required to purchase flood insurance. 

SAVING THE SKI AREA

The Bolton Access Road just after the flood in July, 2024
This road to the Bolton Valley Ski Area has just been
fully restored saving the season for the resort. 

Last July, flooding wiped out large sections of the Bolton Access Road, a steep, winding mountain road connecting Route 2 in Bolton on the valley floor to the Bolton Valley Ski Area way up above that valley. 

Temporary repairs shortly after the flood created a narrow, one lane gravel road that at least connected the resort and homes along Bolton Access Road to civilization.

WPTZ now tells us that the Bolton Access Road is now completely restored, with spanking new culverts and pavement and such. That will save the season for the Bolton ski resort. 

No word on how expensive it was to fix this road, but it had to cost a pretty penny.  Let's hope it holds, as the steep mountain road is prone to damage from flash floods, which seem to be increasing in Vermont. The road was severely damaged in a 1990 flood, and has frequently suffered comparatively minor damage in several other downpours in recent years. 

Parts of Route 100 were also damaged in the July flood, and the sections that were trashed provide access to Sugarbush Resort and Mad River Glen. Repairs are complete on those roads, so people shouldn't have trouble accessing those areas for a day on the slopes. 

Paradise Lost And Found? Struggles Five Years Since Deadly Fire Wiped Out California Town

Five years after a deadly wildfire destroyed the town of
Paradise, California, the town is still rebuilding, but is
facing financial and insurance headwinds. 

 Hard to believe but it's been five years this week since one of the worst wildfires in U.S. history destroyed the town of Paradise, California, claiming 85 lives.  

In just a day or so, the fire leveled almost every house and business in town.- about 18,000 of them.  You still might remember horrifying videos from that day of people desperately trying to drive through flames and zero-visibility smoke to escape the conflagration. 

So how's the town doing now?

It is bouncing back, but it's also a grim reminder of how long it takes to recover from a mega-disaster like this. That fact has resonance here in Vermont, as we continue to recover from the dramatic, highly destructive floods we had this summer. 

In the age of climate change, these weather disasters are coming at us much more frequently than ever before.  We'll have a lot of balls in the air trying to recover from just one disaster. Now imagine how stretched thin emergency managers, insurers, planners, builders, homeowners and business people are. 

In Paradise, California right now, KCRA says 21 percent of the homes have been rebuilt, and another 1,000 or so are under construction. 

Paradise has technically been the fastest growing municipality in California for the past two years. But that's starting from almost zero, and they've reached the peak of the rebuilding effort.

As you can imagine, it's been incredibly expensive. KCRA said the Fire Victim Trust, created in July, 2020, has issued determination notices on 98 percent of claims and has paid $10.7 billion to victims so far. 

The Fire Victim Trust was created by the electric utility PG&E as part of a legal settlement. The utility was blamed for the fire because one of its power lines is believe to have snapped, sparking the blaze on that windy, super dry November 8, 2018.

Many victims are saying the settlements are inadequate and have not allowed them to even partially recover financially from the blaze. 

Even worse, homeowners insurance in Paradise is unaffordable.  This is an increasing problem in disaster-prone areas like Florida. Insurers say they can't keep taking the losses from this increasing onslaught of disasters.  I think any disaster-prone region of the nation is now prone to newly sky high insurance rates, so be forewarned. 

In Paradise, the Associated Press said some homeowners who used to face roughly $1,500 in annual insurance premiums now have $10,000 annual fees. People can't afford that, so they're not rebuilding. Or, if they don't have a mortgage, they're taking their chances and not acquiring homeowners' insurance, which is a really risky move. 

The higher insurance rates are happening despite stringent new building codes to help prevent future disasters. 

A DIFFERENT PARADISE

By necessity, Paradise is shaping up to look a lot different than it did before the fire. 

The town's newspaper, The Paradise Post, announced sweeping building code changes enacted by the Town Council in May, 2022:

"The first change would require that only non-combustible material be allowed within five feet of any building or structure. It would also outlaw any vegetation within five feet of the structure, including the overhang. The ordinance calls for removing any overhanging limbs or branches within five feet of the structure.  It would also regulate all exterior walls to have six inches of noncombustible vertical clearance from grade."

These extensive regulations would also outlaw any vegetation or the storage of combustible material beneath decks and porches. Mesh covering vents in roofs and walls must have openings of an eighth inch or less to prevent embers from slipping into attics. Combustible fencing material must also not come within five feet of a home or building. 

 Paradise officials also are installing 21 warning sirens around town that would serve much like tornado warning sirens in the Midwest, reports Fire Engineering.  Except these sirens will sound a warning, and then be followed by evacuation instructions. That's a quick way to get people heading quickly in the right direction away from danger. 

Fire Engineering compares the new siren system to the chaotic day in 2018 when the wildfire blasted through town. : 

"Many residents said they received no warning on their cellphones or landlines as the fire quickly spread their way. They jumped in their vehicles to escape only after seeing smoke and flames, or after relatives or neighbors knocked on their doors.

'If that fire would have happened just a few hours earlier than it did, we would have had hundreds of people die from that because they'd been in Bed,' (Paradise Mayor Greg ) Bolin said."

Of course, officials have to decide to activate the sirens. During Maui's deadly fires this summer, people report that sirens did not go off.

The long list of fire prevention rules and ordinances in Paradise are starting to be emulated by other wildfire-prone communities. Climate change does seem to be making wildfires, well, wilder. They spread faster, burn hotter, last long and display extreme behavior.  

Like it or not, communities through the United States - throughout the world, really - are all trying to adapt to climate change. We see it again and again.

Few experts think humans can completely adapt ourselves out of the consequences of climate change. There's just too much going on at once. And what's going on is often too extreme to adapt to. Sure, you can enact fire codes that help protect lives and property in big wildfires. But the wildfires are too big for those measures to keep people completely safe. 

We can buy out homes and properties, enlarge culverts and build stronger bridges in places like here in Vermont that are particularly susceptible to floods, but these extreme floods have a tendency to find new victims as the storms get worse and worse. 

It's a race between human engineering and climate change disasters. One that will continue for the foreseeable future. 

Back in Paradise, California, they held a series of events this week to mark the five year anniversary of the firestorm. That included 85 seconds of silence for the 85 victims of the blaze. 

Mercifully, the start of the rainy season has already provided the forests around Paradise a bit of rain. A moderately heavy rain storm is the forecast for the region for this upcoming week. There's no fires burning and the risk of one starting is on the low side. 

It's another reprieve for Paradise. But the town will be tested again with future fires. We hope they'll get through those fine. 

 

Biden Proposed Civilian Climate Corp To Create Jobs, Fight Climate Change. Is It Big Enough?

President Joe Biden is creating a Civilian Climate Corp,
modeled on the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 
1930s.  Will it be as successful as that 
Great Depression-era project?

 When my dad was alive, he told me stories about the Civilian Conservation Corps or CCC during the 1930s Great Depression, and how the work helped get people back on their feet and gave them a sense of purpose.  

Now, the world is facing another crisis in the form of climate change. President Joe Biden, as you might have heard on the news, is proposing an "American Climate Corp."

According to NPR: 

"The White House on Wednesday unveiled a new climate jobs training program that it says could put 20,000 people to work in its first year on projects like restoring land, improving communities' resilience to natural disasters and deploying clean energy"

The American Climate Corps is intentionally modeled after the Depression-era  CCC. Participants will be paid, and most jobs in the Climate Corps won't require previous experience. The Biden administration is trying to establish new regulations that would make it easier for participants to enter the federal public service after the program, NPR reports. 

So far, the American Climate Corp sounds more low-key than the Civilian Conservation Corps nine decades ago. As History.com describes it: 

"The Civilian Conservation Corps was a work relief program that gave millions of young men employment on environmental projects during the Great Depression. Considered by many to be one of the most successful of Roosevelt's New Deal programs, the CCC planted more than three billion trees and constructed trails and shelters in more than 800 parks nationwide during its nine years of existence.  The CCC helped to shape the modern national and state park systems we enjoy today,"

My dad (who everybody called Red) did not participate in the CCC. But judging from the conversations I had with Red, it helped inspired in him a love and fascination with nature and the environment. That embrace of the natural world was passed down to me and my two sisters. I bet the same thing happened to millions of families, because of the CCC.

It appears the Biden administration has similar lofty goals. NPR again:

"President Biden's climate policy advisor Ali Zaidi told reporters that the program has broader goals beyond addressing the climate crisis. 

'We're opening up pathways to good-paying careers, lifetimes of being involved in the work of making our communities more fair, more sustainable, more resilient,' Zaidi said."

Sure, but this is much smaller than the CCC, despite its obvious benefits.  As the Washington Post reports, the program will hire more than 20,000 young people in skills that fight climate change, such as installing solar panels, restoring coastal wetlands and retrofitting homes to become more energy-efficient. 

Critics are saying Biden's goals for the Climate Corps aren't lofty enough. Lawmakers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass wanted more funding for the climate corps, So already, we know this won't be as ambitious as the 1930s CCC.

Biden's Climate Corp seems to have several purposed. Yes, fighting climate change is a biggie. It also looks like he's trying to shore up support among younger voters, who tend to be much concerned about climate change than a lot of Boomer wandering around out there. 

It's also a jobs program, as the Biden administration is emphasizing well paying union jobs, which he hopes the Climate Corp will help create. 

When this thing is set up, people will be able to log onto a new web site where they can learn about the program and sign up for training or jobs. 

 

 

There is another key difference, too. While the Conservation Corps primarily employed young, white men, the White House says that the American Climate Corps is designed to attract participants from disadvantaged communities disproportionately impacted by the changing climate.

 

Latest UN Climate Report An Exercise In Justified Worry

People are just beginning to digest the latest big fat report from UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was released Monday, but the initial news reports on it paint a grim picture. 

Latest UN report on climate change, released this
past week, has a gloomy outlook. 

I mean, check out the lead paragraph of the Associated Press summary article on this thing:

"Deadly with extreme weather now, climate change is about to get so much worse. It is likely going to make the world sicker, hungrier, poorer, gloomier and way more dangerous in the next 18 years with an 'unavoidable' increase in risks, a new United Nations science report says."

The AP article goes on:

'"The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health,' says the major report designed to guide world leaders in their efforts to curb climate change. Delaying cuts in heat-trapping carbon emissions and waiting on adapting to warming's impacts, it warns, 'will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.'"

Among the unhappy nuggets in the report:

Today's children who are still around in 2100 will see four times more climate extremes than they do today, even if the world's temperature goes up by another few tenths of a degree.  If temperatures go up by a little more then 3 degrees Fahrenheit by then, they would feel five times the number of disasters like floods, storms, heat waves and droughts. 

The report says that 3.3 billion people are already highly vulnerable to climate change and 15 times more likely to die in extreme weather. Large numbers of people are already being displaced by climate change. 

By 2050 - less than 30 years from now, about a billion people will face coastal flooding problems form rising seas, and many will be forced out of their homes from flooding, tropical cyclones and sea level rise. 

Some places could become uninhabitable, and others will become too hot for people to work outdoors. That's a problem if you're trying to grow crops, the AP notes. 

It's not just us humans that are having and will have a tough time with climate change. 

Vox outlines some major issues different species face with just a little more warming  

The IPCC says that 14 percent of all plants and animals on land would face a high risk of extinction.  If there's three degrees of warming, up to 29 percent of species on land could go extinct. 

Local populations of species are already decimated by climate change, even if the entire species isn't gone yet. 

Individual climate-related events can wipe out entire swaths, even majorities of some species. A subspecies of marsupial was essentially erased in a 2005 Australian heat wave. The enormous wildfires in the same nation decimated iconic Australian koala bears. 

The Pacific Northwest heat wave last June killed millions of ocean, lake and river aquatic animals. Just a little more warming could eliminate 90 percent of the world's already suffering coral reefs. 

The bottom line is the news in the latest report is bad, perhaps worse than most people would have believed.  As the New York Times reported:

"'One of the most striking conclusions in our report is that we're seeing adverse impacts that are much more widespread and much more negative than expected,' said Camille Parmesan, an ecologist at the University of Texas, Austin and one of the researchers who prepared the report."

 A lot of discussion regarding climate change is how we adapt to it. But the report indicates we need to step up the rate of adaptation. And if nothing is done to sharply reduce greenhouse emissions, things will have gone too far for any of us to adapt. 

The New York Times goes on: 

"'There has been the assumption that, 'Well, if we cannot control climate change, we'll just let it go and adapt to it,' said Hans-Otto Portner, a marine biologist in Germany who helped coordinate the report. But given the expected risks as the planet keeps warming, he said, 'this is certainly a very illusionary approach.'"

Here's the problem as I see it:  I know that most governments can walk and chew gum at the same time. But issues other than climate change facing the world are incredibly complex. The pandemic isn't over.  We have what really amounts to a global crisis with Russia's monstrous invasion of Ukraine. 

Sure, the fact that we're close to the point where climate change will limit humanity's ability to feed itself, climate change is the ultimate crisis. But you can't just blow off the other crises. 

Even if nations commit to aggressively combating climate change, which is a big if, do we have the bandwidth to actually get the job done? And done on time?

The IPCC estimates we'd have to eliminate almost all carbon emissions by 2050 to get a handle on things. That's only 28 years from now. Meanwhile, judging from the new record high for the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere set last year, emissions continue to rise. 

It's not like the IPCC hasn't been giving us a head's up on all this for the past couple of decades at least. 

The AP again here:

"The panel of more than 200 scientists puts out a series of these massive reports every five to seven years, with this one, the second of the series, devoted to how climate change affects people and the planet. Last August the science panel published a report on the latest climate science and projections for future warming, branded 'code red' by the United Nations."

The AP quoted climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of the Nature Conservancy as calling this latest report as the "Your House is on Fire" report. 

However, she and others still advocated hope.  The AP article again: "It's really bad and there's a good chance that it will get worse,' Hayhoe said. 'But if we do everything we can, that will make a difference....That's what hope is."

"'Fear is not a good advisor and never is,' German vice chancellor and minister for climate and economy told the AP. 'Hope is the right one.'"  

Climate Change Exposes Canadian Economic Vulnerability

This map shows an expected 200 to 300 millimeters (7 to 11
inches) of rain in the four days ending tomorrow in
parts of British Columbia, Canada. This will make
an ongoing huge flood disaster there even worse.

 Earlier this month, record flooding blasted through much of British Columbia, Canada, wrecking countless homes and businesses.

Perhaps worse, it destroyed miles of highways and rail lines through the western Canadian province, and that could badly hurt the entire Canadian economy. 

Meanwhile, this weekend and early in the week, another atmospheric river is causing more flooding and destruction in the same areas. 

The British Columbian flooding and the disruptions it is causing are another sign that we are all more vulnerable than we think we are. 

We don't imagine the long term effects of these climate-induced disasters until they happen. We lack the imagination to fully anticipate the greater consequences to come after the immediate effects of any particular climate disaster. 

In this case, the flooding could put a real damper on the GDP of the entire nation of Canada. Geography is not Canada's friend in the age of climate change. 

As Reuters notes, 

"The majority of Canadian exports, which account for nearly exports, which account for nearly one-third of the country's GDP, travel to the Pacific coast to reach Asian markets. 

But the supply chain route relies on two rail lines and a handful of highways through the Rocky Mountains and rugged British Columbia interior to the Port of Vancouver. 

'Geology did not give Canada a lot of options and funneling a huge amount of exports down the Fraser Canyon increases our vulnerability, said Barry Prentice, professor of supply chain management at University of Manitoba.

The Fraser Canyon, which stretches from B.C.'s high interior plateau, through the Coast Mountains to the lower mainland, suffered some of the most severe highway washouts during the storm. It was also ravaged by a wildfire this summer that destroyed a town and closed road and rail routes."

The upcoming new storm is once again focusing on the Fraser Canyon, causing added damage and stalling efforts to pick up the pieces from the last storm. 

 According to Forbes:

"Although this forthcoming storm is expected to be less intense than the previous one, British Columbia has barely had time to recover from the flooding. So, the incumbent storm....will likely exacerbate ongoing flooding and washouts. It will likely increase the number of displaced residents, which approached 18,000 individuals last week and disproportionately impacted First Nation communities that predominantly exist in rural areas."

One example of the extreme transportation disruptions in 
British Columbia, Canada due to this month's record flooding
Image is from the BC Ministry of Transportation and
Infrastructure

Atmospheric rivers off the Pacific Ocean have always hit British Columbia and have often caused floods. With climate change, the atmosphere can hold more moisture now that it is warmer, The more moisture, the heavier the rain. 

The atmospheric river storms themselves are warmer, too. In the winter, these systems take the form of heavy snowstorms and blizzards in high elevations. That snow eventually slowly melts and the runoff is manageable. 

Now, the rain falls at much higher elevations in these warm storms, and the water runs off in giant gushes, contributing to the flooding. 

The summer's fires, and the flooding this month which wiped out key rail and road lines through British Columbia's mountains to the rest of the nation.

As Reuters notes, the easiest way to get goods from British Columbia to the rest of Canada is through the Fraser Canyon, and that is getting more and more untenable. Same is true for Canada's export market, since much of the nation's goods head west through the Fraser Canyon to ports in and around Vancouver on the Pacific Coast. 

Vancouver handles nearly 20 percent of Canada's global trade. 

Climate change will continue to exacerbate these disasters. Canada is going to have to figure out how to make these rail and road passages more resilient, and they're going to need to add redundancy to its transportation network.   British Columbia's experience is probably a good window into the fact that many parts of the world are going to have to adapt to climate change in big ways. 

Reuters said Canada will have to rethink its export market, sending more good south to the United States and east toward Europe. That, instead of west toward the more lucrative Asian markets. 

That's not to say the entire Canadian economy is in ruin from this. Far from it.  It's a large, resilient, wealthy, well-run nation. Imagine if the same set of climate circumstances hit a poorer, more dysfunctional nation.

As it is, even before this weekend's atmospheric river, the floods in British Columbia had caused at least 7.5 billion dollars in damage. The publication Business in Vancouver reported the Bank of Montreal cut its prediction for the  provinces growth in GDP this year from 5.3 percent to 3.8 percent, just because of the flooding earlier this month.  The renewed flooding ongoing now won't help. 

By the way, there was lesser, but still destructive flooding this month in parts of Canada's eastern seaboard, too. 

It's bad enough that a global pandemic, economic forces and bad political decisions are gumming up the works in global trade.  Climate change is going to be an increasing factor. We are going to have to get our act together here. 

 

Climate Assessment For Vermont: Less Snow, More Floods

A climate assessment for the Green Mountain State
shows us more big changes are coming to Vermont
in the coming decades. 

 Vermont is hotter, wetter and has more variable weather than a century ago, thanks to climate change, according to a new climate assessment from the University of Vermont.

The findings are not surprising (at least to me) and match climate data from other sources, but the assessment does serve as a great blueprint on how we will need to navigate further effects from climate change. 

Ski areas will need to adapt to shorter snow seasons. More intense storms means we'll have to continue fortifying ourselves for more intense floods.

Agriculture will also have to deal with that increased risk of excessive rain, with wild jolts into drought occasionally to make things even more complicated. Forests and wildlife will change. 

The report was produced by the University of Vermont's Gund Institute for Environment and released earlier this month.  The whole report is a follow-up to a similar 2014 Gund Institute study. As Seven Days reports, that 2014 assessment was the first in the United States to examine climate change at a state level.  

Two of the key takeaways from the report are that winters are warming faster than the other seasons and snow season is growing shorter. Also, precipitation events are getting heavier, leaving Vermont more prone to flooding. 

Those floods sweep crud, nutrients and silt into rivers, ponds and lakes, which wrecks water quality and increases the chances of algae blooms, some of which can be dangerous and poisonous.

The report tells us that Vermont's average annual temperature has increased by almost 2 degrees since 1900.  Winter temperatures are up 2.5 times faster than the overall annual temperatures over the past 60 years.  The number of very cold nights has decreased by over seven days in the same time period.

Vermont, as we know, is really forested. It will probably remain that way, but your grandchildren will probably see a very different forest when they're old than you do now.  The familiar sugar maples, balsam fir, yellow birch and black oak will be less prevalent than they are now by 2100. In their stead will be more northern red oak, shagbark hickory and black cherry. 

It will be a gradual process, as the older species slowly die out and young new species take over. 

It's also possible climate change will make iconic Vermont species like the common loon and hermit thrush disappear from the state in the coming decades, according to the report.

One finding that stuck out for me is this, from the report's executive summary. Average annual precipitation is up 21 percent since 1900 in general, but is becoming more variable. BUT, as the executive summary states: 

"Vermont is also becoming wetter......However, Vermont still experiences prolonged droughts because of shifts in the water cycle, and different regions of Vermont can experience different climate impacts."

There was a classic example of this during the past summer. Southern Vermont was sopping wet, and experienced damaging floods. At the same time, far northern Vermont was gripped by drought.

 An interesting note in the climate report is something I've brought up previously. The effects of climate change in Vermont will be big and noticeable and impactful, but perhaps not as dire as in other parts of the nation, or the world. 

Will that mean Vermont will become a haven of sorts from climate change?

As Seven Days reports, the latest Vermont climate assessment doesn't see any evidence yet that people are flocking to the Green Mountain State to avoid the worst of climate change.  Honestly, things have not gotten that dire yet for most Americans. 

The pandemic has been a cautionary tale, however, as people stampeded into Vermont from cities as the crisis took hold, hoping to avoid the crowds and contagion of cities. For better or worse, I guess.  

I've lived in Vermont all of my life (so far!). I've always been attuned to what nature is doing out there in any given moment.  I can tell you things are much different from when I was a kid.  I won't list them all, but I've noticed winters are far more variable, summers are hotter, spring is earlier and most autumns are later than they used to be.

As the latest Vermont climate assessment shows, we can expect perhaps even bigger changes in the coming decades as the world continues to warm.