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04-24-2018 03:49 PM - edited 04-24-2018 03:49 PM
Basically, this story says that in between drought conditions, there may be extra heavy rain leading to more dangerous flooding.
Buckle up, California. Some serious 'precipitation whiplash' predicted for the state
BY DALE KASLER (for the Sacramento Bee)
April 23, 2018 08:00 AM
Updated April 23, 2018 06:54 PM
It was the greatest flood in recorded California history, 43 days of rain and snow that swamped the state, killed thousands of people and forced the newly elected governor to take a boat to his inauguration at the Capitol.
Now a group of climatologists says global warming will increase California's risk to repeat performances of the devastating flood of 1862.
In a study published Monday in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change, the scientists say climate change will increasingly expose California to a phenomenon they call "precipitation whiplash," in which drought or drought-like conditions will alternate with intensely rainy winters. Rain and snow will become concentrated in narrow windows of time at the peak of winter, instead of being spread between October and April.
Californians already got a taste of whiplash in the winter of 2017, when the wettest winter ever recorded in Northern California snapped the historic five-year drought, the article said.
"The already distinct contrast between California's long, dry summers and relatively brief, wet winters will probably become even more pronounced," the scientists wrote.
When scientists discuss climate change's impact on California, they usually talk about worsening droughts: Warmer winters will diminish the Sierra Nevada snowpack, the argument goes, making it harder to store precipitation for the summer months that follow. Hotter summers will put additional strains on water supplies.
The Nature Climate Change article shines an uncomfortable spotlight on California's flood risk from climate change. "In some circles the increasing risk of flood could have been overlooked to date," said UCLA climatologist Daniel Swain, a co-author of the article.
The article's conclusions could be particularly troubling for Sacramento, which is generally considered the second-most flood-prone major city in America after New Orleans.
The region has spent $2 billion in the past 20 years to strengthen levees along the Sacramento and American rivers, and reduce other vulnerabilities, but the risk remains significant. Portions of the region still lack 100-year flood protection, including 25 percent of the city of Sacramento. That means those areas couldn't withstand a storm with a 1-in-100 chance of occurring in a given year, and property owners in those areas generally are required to buy flood insurance.
The Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, or SAFCA, says it is committed to achieving a minimum of 200-year flood protection, the threshold established by the Legislature in 2007. A total of $2.4 billion worth of projects is in the pipeline, including work on levees around Natomas and Arcade Creek that's scheduled to begin later this year. SAFCA also is working with federal officials on a plan to raise Folsom Dam, which could push the region's flood protection to as high as 300 years.
Yet much of the work on SAFCA's to-do list is years from completion. And even 300-year flood protection might not be enough. Experts say a mega-flood similar to 1862 could overwhelm even the most advanced levees and other defenses. The U.S. Geological Survey,in a 2011 study, said the 1862 disaster was probably a 500- or 1,000-year storm.
The 1862 storm was pure catastrophe. "Drowning deaths occurred every day on the Feather, Yuba and American rivers," the magazine Scientific American recalled in a 2013 article. "In one tragic account, an entire settlement of Chinese miners was drowned by floods on the Yuba River."
The water was 30 feet deep in some places, and Gov. Leland Stanford took a rowboat from the governor's mansion to his inauguration.
Although flood control obviously has improved since the 19th century, there are now millions of people and billions of dollars of property in close proximity to levees and reservoirs. The Geological Survey's study said a storm akin to 1862 could cause $400 billion in property damage statewide and another $325 billion in business-interruption expense.
"We're absolutely not ready for a storm that size," said Jeffrey Mount, a water expert at the Public Policy Institute of California. Mount didn't contribute to the Nature Climate Change article but is familiar with its findings.
State officials are starting to take a new approach to flood safety that could help California withstand monster storms. Last year the Central Valley Flood Protection Board, an arm of the Department of Water Resources, released a blueprint that relies less on strengthening levees to tame the rivers and more on resisting housing development in the worst of the high-risk zones.
Arguing that California must give its rivers more room to roam, the DWR report said too many residents are "still at unacceptably high risk from catastrophic flooding."
Barry Nelson, a Bay Area water policy consultant, said the new plan is a breakthrough in flood control but isn't an immediate fix, either. "Preparing to manage our flood system and our natural resources is kind of like planning for retirement," he said. "You can't wait until you're 64. It's going to take decades."
In the meantime, Swain said the rising risk of mega-flooding, including the chance of a disaster along the lines of 1862, should alarm every Californian.
"It goes from being something that might have happened once every other century, essentially, to happening maybe multiple times over the next 80 years," Swain said in an interview. "We go from a situation where it would be such an outlier that we probably don't have to deal with it ... to one where it becomes something that we almost certainly will have to deal with, and probably sooner rather than later."
Why would climate change make for more intense rainstorms? Because warmer temperatures increase the atmosphere's capacity to hold water vapor during the rainy season, he said. That doesn't necessarily mean every storm will be heavier, but it increases the likelihood.
In general, "you'll get more intense downpours," he said.
04-24-2018 04:18 PM
I suppose anything is possible....but what can you do about such a worry?
worry?
Move?
Build an Ark?
Or maybe just live your life.
04-24-2018 04:23 PM
Is this related to El Niño and La Niña?
04-24-2018 04:24 PM
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. My hometown is Sacramento - though I've lived in Oklahoma for the past twenty years - the BRAC committee closed a boat load of bases back in the late 1990's. McClellan AFB being one of them and my husband's employer. Thus the move to Oklahoma with a job offer from Tinker Air Force Base. So guess I'm an okie now.
04-24-2018 04:31 PM
It's news.
As such, you are free to feel about this however you please or take or not take whatever action you see fit, @SeaMaiden
I would guess the same situation would occur all along the West Coast, esp since the PNW has experienced more drought in recent years.
04-24-2018 04:33 PM
@x Hedge wrote:Is this related to El Niño and La Niña?
Maybe look at the original article referenced in the story or contact the writer, @x Hedge?
I would guess the answer is no because this is part of the larger change in climate altogether.
04-24-2018 04:38 PM - edited 04-24-2018 04:55 PM
Everything is scary.
'Trouble is' a lot (some have said an over-abundance) of homes have been built in a lower basin area, from what I've heard. Where there was an actual 'lake of water' with steam/wheel-propelled ships, ('steam boats') similar to the tourist based ones in Lousiana and other places. I recall hearing and seeing something about it on a documentary years ago.
The only remedy I can think of is to pay more attention and avoid low-lying areas when looking for homes/apts. They could potentially/eventually be flood areas. We really can't depend on anything or anyone else to 'correct' future problems. Just be aware, and be in control (ourselves) of where we choose to live, if possible.
Wishing all of us well and good luck, no matter what.
04-24-2018 05:20 PM
@GingerPeach wrote:It's news.
As such, you are free to feel about this however you please or take or not take whatever action you see fit, @SeaMaiden
I would guess the same situation would occur all along the West Coast, esp since the PNW has experienced more drought in recent years.
@GingerPeach, I didn't infer that @SeaMaiden was scolding you for posting this; I just thought that she gave an opinion, with which, btw, I agree.
I had read the article in the Los Angeles Times this morning. I thought it was interesting, but ultimately, I just don't feel any sense of worry or panic. Every locale has its serious weather phenomena.
04-24-2018 05:36 PM - edited 04-24-2018 10:12 PM
@GingerPeach In the article, I don't believe it was the wettest Winter last year. And what is with the short rainy season? I remember it always beginning to rain in October and continuing into April, and remember looking out of the window and seeing flooding in the gutters, the water just rushing down. I also never heard of the 1862 experience, and I should have at some point, but assume that it happened.
Russian River may just disappear if flooding happens, it always overflows, and really gets the worst of storms.
It also depends in what part of California one lives, way up North gets a lot more rain that the lower North, and then Southern Ca gets even less, comparatively speaking.
04-24-2018 05:47 PM
@mousiegirl wrote:@GingerPeach In the article, I don't believe it was the wettest Winter last year. And what is with the short rainy season? I remember is always beginning to rain in October and continuing into April, and remember looking out of the window and seeing flooding in the gutters, the water just rushing down. I also never heard of the 1862 experience, and I should have at some point, but assume that it happened.
Russian River may just disappear if flooding happens, it always overflows, and really gets the worst of storms.
It also depends in what part of California one lives, way up North gets a lot more rain that the lower North, and then Southern Ca gets even less, comparatively speaking.
Can't agree more. Aside from climate differences between nothern and southern California, there are micro-climates all over the place. And, Southern California has been classified as being "Arid" vice the clim in Northern California, which is not at all arid.
The Russian River was the first thing which came to mind. It has flooded so many times, I'm surprised insurers and local government continue to allow building and re-building along its banks.
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