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Rain events of jaw-dropping magnitude due to increasing moisture from climate change have arrived. [1]
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Date: 2022-08-08
Another torrential rainfall event in Denver is the latest of four one in one-thousand-year events that struck the United States in just two weeks. That does not mean that a storm of such magnitude “occurs once every thousand years, but rather that in any given year it should have a 0.1 percent chance of it occurring.” According to meteorologists at the Washington Posts Capital Gang, the situation will only worsen as rain events now operate in a warmer atmosphere capable of holding more moisture due to the heating of the globe.
Our infrastructure was not built for a heating climate, and we should expect the unexpected with natural disasters as climate breakdown is a threat multiplier. We are now firmly entrenched in the Anthropocene.
The heavy rainfall has been driven by characteristic summertime moisture pooling along a stalled front draped from the Colorado Rockies into central states sitting atop a heat dome sprawled over the Southern U.S. Such fronts wring the humidity out of the air like someone squeezing out a washcloth. That can lead to rainfall rates of 2 to 3 inches — or more — per hour. These fronts also act like train tracks guiding developing thunderstorms over the same areas repeatedly. That was the case eight days ago in St. Louis, where 7.87 inches of rain fell in six hours’ time. That prompted flash flood emergencies across the city, and cars inundated by rising floodwaters. Extreme flooding plagued eastern Kentucky just two days later, with 37 people now confirmed dead. President Biden, who visited the region on Monday, has pledged assistance from the federal government in recovery efforts. Another high-end rain event dropped up to 14 inches of rain late last week near Effingham, Ill. As the atmosphere continues to warm, events of this magnitude will become increasingly common. That will translate to increased economic losses, damage to vulnerable and aging infrastructure, and danger to the public, particularly in urban areas. In the last two weeks, we’ve now observed four 1-in-1,000 year rain events. That doesn’t mean that level of rainfall occurs once every thousand years, but rather that in any given year it should have a 0.1 percent chance of it occurring. A limitation of the 1,000-year rainfall metric is that it is based on historical data and on the assumption the climate isn’t changing. As the atmosphere continues to warm, and its capacity to store and transport moisture increases, this metric loses its meaning as previously rare events become more common.
Kentucky flooding was not only exacerbated by a warming atmosphere; strip mining was an additional contributor to the devastation.
James Bruggers writes in Inside Climate News:
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