Environmentalist wackos are sooooo predictable
By bs Posted in Miscellanea — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
As a resident of the St. Louis metropolitan area, I am very familiar with floods, their impact, and the history of major flood events in the area. I've lived through major floods in 1973, 1982, 1993, and now in 2008. I've seen the area build up and businesses move into the valleys and riverfronts around the metro area and along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers all around St. Louis. I've even studied hydrology and meteorology in college prior to changing majors from meteorology to computer science. So I become rather amused to read the "experts" write about such topics in the media.
Today's readings brought me to this story published by Reuters, titled "Midwest floods show signs of global warming." Shocking. The leftists are blaming the floods on global warming. And, surprise! It comes from the National Wildlife Federation
"Although no single weather event can be attributed to global warming, it's critical to understand that a warming climate is supplying the very conditions that fuel these kinds of weather events," said Amanda Staudt, a climate scientist with the National Wildlife Federation.
What took them so long? But they seem to have some mathematical issues. The article states:
Floods like those that inundated the U.S. Midwest are supposed to occur once every 500 years but this is the second since 1993, suggesting flawed forecasts that do not take global warming into account, conservation experts said on Tuesday.
Really? Seems like the experts missed out on the actual definition of a "500-year flood." They should have read up on it via this article from the AP, published yesterday. It accurately states:
some scientists and disaster officials say the use of terms like "100-year flood" should be re-evaluated because they are often misunderstood and can give the public a false sense of security."We, the United States Geological Survey, almost need to quit using the term `100-year flood,'" said hydrologist Gary Wilson with the USGS Missouri Water Science Center in Rolla, Mo. "It could happen twice a year, if you're unlucky." Or 200 years could go by without a 100-year flood, he said.
Thank you. It's about time someone pointed this out. The term is more a statement of probability, not calendar frequency. Because of this ignorance of the meanings of that terminology, many are assuming that we've all of a sudden been hit by this epidemic of killer floods that just HAVE to be caused by global warming climate change.
At least the Corps of Engineers understands that the flooding has nothing to do with global warming:
The Army Corps' analysis rejects any kind of climate change -- human-generated or naturally occurring -- as a mechanism that could alter flood patterns along the Mississippi over the last century, Pinter said.
So why is flooding more common? Ironically, the answer may well be because of the flood control mechanisms that have been put in place to control the flooding. It seems intuitively obvious that when one makes a river narrower and inhibits the water's ability to spread out when more volume flows (e.g. during times of heavy rain, such as has fallen this year in Iowa, Nebraska, etc.), the stream will get deeper. The more levees we build downstream, the deeper the water gets upstream. This becomes quite obvious when levee breaks occur and the water levels drop all around. When the rivers are left to spread and flow into the low areas are natural flood plains, the water levels are lower.
The Corps, however, refuses to believe that THEIR work would cause problems, as seen in this article from the NYT
“All of the information I have seen, and I’ve been looking at this issue for a very long time, navigation structures do not increase flood heights — I’m very confident of that,” Mr. Busse (David Busse, chief of engineering and construction for the St. Louis district of the Corps.) said. “We have data that shows that the flows come in at stages that are the same or lower since we’ve put these projects in, and that’s just a fact.”
Just in the 40+ years I have been living in the St. Louis area, there has been major construction of levees, flood walls, canals, lock & dam systems, river navigation aids, and other impedances to water flow in the rivers...and all of these can and do impact the level of water in the river, especially during floods. To try to pin the flooding in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri on "climate change" is ridiculous. But not at all unexpected.
that to avoid flooding like this year, all of the levees would need to be of the quality of the ones in Earth City and/or Chesterfield valley and/or the new one out in the bottoms along Route 370...reinforced with rock and built up far higher than the "500-year-flood" level. The levees that have failed over the last couple of weeks have primarily been agricultural levees that are not designed for floods anywhere near the severity of what we've seen this year.
And if they DID build up those levees like those seen in the areas like I listed above, chances are the floods would be even WORSE next time, as there would be no "safety valve" to allow some of the flood waters to spread into the flood plains and take the pressure off. Pretty soon the river banks will be lined with 100-foot high flood walls all the way from Minnesota to New Orleans!
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this year and wiped out a century's worth of "A"GW, I guess that temperature has been replaced by flood waters in determining whether it is now hotter or cooler.
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Oh yeah its not cult < / snark >
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
make the world go around for the left. It's all about power and its accumulation into the hands of a select few. Pity that most liberals stop at the touchy feely level and allow themselves to being manipulated into fearing a myth. If they'd put one-tenth of the fear into worrying about things that could really hurt them, this country wouldn't be in the shape it's in right now.
I talk to a lot of people up around Hannibal, Winfield, Troy, Louisiana, etc. They are all pissed at the Corps. Many cities have been fighting for improved levies since 1993 and have just now gotten through the paper work stage into the discussion stage.
Corps not responsible my [redacted].
McCain for POTUS so the left can't ruin SCOTUS.