Warming climate could see a future California flood become the world's costliest disaster, study suggests
Michael Lee

A new study is offering a dire prediction for the U.S. state of California, where scientists say catastrophic flooding could become twice as likely in the future due to the effects of climate change.

Researchers from UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research completed and published the results of the first part of their "ArkStorm" 2.0 study, looking into possible climate-induced flooding of a "biblical" proportion, also known as "the Other Big One" in reference to an expected major earthquake on the San Andreas Fault.

The study, published on Aug. 12 in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances, found that historical climate change has already doubled the likelihood of an extreme storm scenario, with the chance of a "megastorm" expected to increase with each additional degree of global warming this century.

The study projects that end-of-the-century storms will create between 200 and 400 per cent more runoff in the Sierra Nevada Mountains due to increased precipitation, more of which will fall as rain instead of snow.

"In the future scenario, the storm sequence is bigger in almost every respect," Daniel Swain, UCLA climate scientist and co-author of the paper, said in a press release.

"There's more rain overall, more intense rainfall on an hourly basis and stronger wind."

While droughts and wildfires tend to get a great deal of attention, Swain said Californians might be losing sight of ...

https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-envi ... -1.6026919

Mangrove forests: How 40 million Australian trees died of thirst

In 2015, about 10% of Australia's vast mangrove forests in the Gulf of Carpentaria mysteriously died.

Scientists have now figured out the cause - and warn the forests may struggle to recover in a changing climate.

More----> Video by Isabelle Rodd at source

No link

Oops. That was embarrassing. Here it is: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-australia-62489574

Mexico City Is Sinking Faster Than Ever And There’s No Hope It Can Be Reversed
DR. ALFREDO CARPINETI

For over 100 years, it has been known that Mexico City is sinking due to the removal of water from the ground it's built on. This sinking has now reached an alarming rate of 50 centimeters (20 inches) per year and a new study published in JGR Solid Earth suggests that there is no hope of reversing it.

Mexico City is built over the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan and Lake Texcoco, a system of salt and fresh water lakes. The Aztec had dikes to separate the fresh water and stop floods but those were destroyed during the Spanish colonial invasion and the siege of the city in the 1500s. Afterward the Spanish drained the lake with ....

https://www.iflscience.com/mexico-city- ... rsed-59640

'Super Rain': The New Climate Threat
The flash flooding in Texas over the weekend dramatizes how storms are not only becoming stronger but can deliver stunning amounts of rain in a single hour.
Paul Carroll

The flash flooding in Texas over the weekend and into Monday crystallizes a concern that has increasingly troubled climate scientists, something that might be called "super rain."

The issue is partly the sheer amount of rain that can fall in a single storm because global warming lets summer air carry much more moisture. Even more, the issue is how fast that rain can fall. The flooding in Texas, for instance, occurred not just because more than 15 inches of rain fell in parts of Dallas in a 24-hour period on Sunday and Monday (more than two summers' worth of rain) but because three inches of that rain fell in a single hour on Sunday -- almost half a summer's worth of rain, just like that.

Hotter weather exacerbates the problem by baking the ground, creating conditions where more water runs off rather than being absorbed. Wildfires increasingly expose more ground to the effects of that hotter weather. And, as cities grow, they pave over more ground that could absorb rain, yet sewer systems haven't been upgraded.

Sounds like ...

https://www.insurancethoughtleadership. ... ate-threat

Includes link to the original Washington Post story

Greenland's rapidly melting ice sheet will eventually raise global sea level by at least 27 centimetres -- more than twice as much as previously forecast -- according to a study published Monday.

'Zombie ice' from Greenland will raise sea level 27 centimetres
Seth Borenstein

Greenland’s rapidly melting ice sheet will eventually raise global sea level by at least 27 centimetres (10.6 inches) -- more than twice as much as previously forecast — according to a study published Monday.

That’s because of something that could be called zombie ice. That’s doomed ice that, while still attached to thicker areas of ice, is no longer getting replenished by parent glaciers now receiving less snow. Without replenishment, the doomed ice is melting from climate change and will inevitably raise seas, said study co-author William Colgan, a glaciologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.

“It’s dead ice. It’s just going to melt and disappear from the ice sheet,” Colgan said in an interview. “This ice has been consigned to the ocean, regardless of what ...

https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-envi ... -1.6047728

link to actual study at source

TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): The Europeans have discovered that the real threat to human civilization is not global warming, it never was global warming. The real threat to people is global cooling, otherwise known as winter. Far more people freeze to death every year than die of heat. In 2019, for example, four times as many people died of cold as of heat. That's according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. So when temperatures in Europe begin to drop a few months from now, this is a huge problem and that will be obvious to everyone. It's not global warming, it's global cooling. That's what's going to kill your grandmother.

One would have to be stupid to swallow this nonsense.

That said, it is Tucker Carlson (and his audience) so there's nothing surprising here.

If people would, instead, call it climate change he and his ilk wouldn't have a leg to stand on because there is proof that the climate is changing...thus the extremely cold winters he so glibly notes. And the proof of climate change is much more than how many deaths due to conditions. It involves crops, melting ice caps et al. However, Tucker wouldn't understand all that science nonsense.

Rising seas could swallow millions of U.S. acres within decades
New research finds an estimated 25,000 properties in Louisiana could slip below tidal boundary lines by 2050. Florida, Texas and North Carolina also face profound economic risks.
Brady Dennis

The water is coming.

There’s no longer much doubt about that, as scientists have increasingly documented how the warming of the planet has accelerated sea level rise along coasts around the world.

But an analysis published Thursday by the research nonprofit Climate Central reveals a troubling dimension of the economic toll that could unfold in the United States, as hundreds of thousands of homes, offices and other privately owned properties slip below swelling tide lines over the next few decades.

Here are five takeaways from the research about the people and places that stand to lose most, the likely ripple effects and reasons the world must ....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate- ... e-central/

Let's not ignore the loss of even more potable water (already in short supply) in Florida.

Not just Florida - much of the South West is also in trouble.

https://apnews.com/article/colorado-riv ... 6b4731b6d4

Be interesting to see how this plays out ....

California’s Ban on Gas Cars Can’t Fail
BY NITISH PAHWA

That sound you heard on Wednesday was the roar of 1,000 engines sputtering with the knowledge that the end is nigh. That’s when California announced it would begin phasing in a ban on sales of new gas-powered cars in the state: By 2035, per terms first laid out in a 2020 executive order by Gov. Gavin Newsom, automakers will no longer be allowed to sell cars within state lines unless they’re powered by electric-charge batteries or hydrogen fuel cells (or are plug-in hybrids, in certain instances). Companies will also have to meet benchmarks along the way: By 2026, 35 percent of their sales must consist of zero-emission vehicles, and by 2030, 68 percent. The California Air Resources Board will enforce these standards, with the power to impose fines on carmakers that violate the rule, and to ensure the batteries used in their electric vehicles are ...

https://slate.com/technology/2022/08/ca ... icles.html

So far, it looks like we're going to get slammed by Fiona.

Yep. And Bermuda will be faced with it early Friday morning

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate- ... ne-canada/

Post-tropical storm warnings are up. I'm more concerned about the wind than the rain. If the wind knocks out power we can't pump water and keep the heat on. It's one or the other.

Don't know where you are relative to the coast but the storm surge is something that too many people fail to take into account.

On the Annapolis River. It's still tidal where we are but there's a causeway between the Bay of Fundy (highest tides in the world) and the river that can mitigate the problem.

Edit: So far, not too concerning. Gusts up to 80 kph. We've had worse.

Okay - Bermudian friends are watching this

http://www.weather.bm/maps/TropicalStor ... 2292217405

It's updated every few hours

Forecast getting worse. I think we're in for a big one. I expect 2-3days without power and, if we're lucky, not too much damage.