New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is scheduled to speak at 1:30 today on how the city must prepare comprehensive plans for addressing climate-driven storms, floods, droughts, heat waves and other weather events that could threaten its infrastructure. [New York Times]

The Bloomberg administration on Monday issued new warnings about New York City’s vulnerability to climate change, offering updated data to encourage businesses, residents and perhaps even future mayors to better prepare against hotter weather, fiercer storms and increased rainfall.

Administration officials estimated that more than 800,000 city residents will live in the 100-year flood plain by the 2050s. That figure is more than double the 398,000 currently estimated to be at risk, based on new maps the Federal Emergency Management Agency released Monday.

Many more businesses and jobs will also be at risk.

The EPA released numbers disproving conservative claims that the agency is discriminating against conservative groups on FOIA fee waivers. [Politico]

An EIA report shows that oil and gas reserves are 35% greater in 2013 than in 2011. [LA Times]

In two weeks, Massachusetts voters will choose Senator John Kerry’s replacement in a special election, and National Journal notes that Rep. Ed Markey is running for the office as the “first real Climate Candidate.” [National Journal]

The U.S. Coast Guard is ratcheting down oil spill cleanup efforts from the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill in 2010. [AP]

China’s rich coastal provinces are exporting their carbon emissions to the poorer provinces by importing their goods, making a climate solution more politically difficult for the country. [Guardian]

Developing countries are deploying new plans to seek climate project finance as funding for the Clean Development Mechanism dries up. [Reuters]

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Widespread flooding throughout Central Europe has forced thousands from their homes and killed at least eleven people, with several others missing. The heavy rain expected to continue through Tuesday.

In the Czech Republic, a nationwide state of emergency is in effect and more than 3,000 people have been evacuated across the western part of the country. As the BBC reports, as of Monday morning, the River Vlatava (seen above, via AP) was flowing at 2,800 cubic meters per second — 10 times its normal volume — and is expected to rise again on Tuesday.

In an attempt to stave off a repeat of the historic 2002 floods that killed 70 people and caused an estimated 20 billion Euros worth of damage across the continent, officials in Prague have shut down the city’s subway system and central sewage treatment plant, in addition to erecting flood defenses to protect the historic city center. Outside of Prague, thousands of homes have lost access to water and power as water levels on more than 20 rivers continue to rise.

The federal army has sent 1,760 soldiers to southern and eastern parts of Germany to assist local authorities with flood defenses. According to Der Spiegel, states of emergency have been declared in a number of areas including the Bavarian city of Passau, where the Danube river rose above 12.2 meters on Monday, the highest level ever recorded. The historic city center is under water and the power supply to that district has been shut off.

Road and rail service was disrupted across all three countries following the torrential rains and shipping was stopped on parts of the Danube and Rhine rivers because of the high waters. The risk now extends downstream to other major cities, such as Budapest, located along the Danube.

After enduring a severe winter, Europe faced heavy rainfall throughout the spring. Germany’s National Meteorological Service estimates that 178 percent more rain fell in May than in the previous year. In Austria, the meteorological service said two months of rain had fallen in just two days. Britain suffered the rainiest spring on record. And in Italy, it was the wettest spring in 150 years and coldest in 20.

A study released earlier this year by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association confirmed what scientists have long been saying about the role of climate change in driving extreme precipitation. The study found that extreme precipitation events will become more frequent this century as climate change continues to warm the planet, predicting 20-30 percent more precipitation in the Northern Hemisphere by 2099.

And increasingly, scientists are connecting record Arctic sea ice loss to an increase in extreme weather due to the weakened jet stream. As NOAA explained in a 2012 news release, “… with more solar energy going into the Arctic Ocean because of lost ice, there is reason to expect more extreme weather events, such as heavy snowfall, heat waves, and flooding in North America and Europe.”

Due to heavy rainfall, higher sea-levels and more extreme weather, the European Environment Agency warned earlier this year that increased flooding is likely to be one of the most serious effects of climate change in Europe over the coming decades. Their research also found that half of the 32 member countries of the EEA still lack plans to adapt to the effects of global warming.

The Midwest has experienced near record flooding this spring, resulting in four deaths, extensive property damage, and disruptions of agriculture and transportation. Evidence suggests that manmade climate change has increased the frequency of heavy downpours, and will continue to increase flooding risks. But in their ample coverage of Midwestern flooding, major media outlets rarely mentioned climate change.

By Jill Fitzsimmons & Shauna Theel, via Media Matters

Less Than 3 Percent Of Midwest Flood Stories Mention Climate Change

ABC, NBC And CNN Entirely Ignore Climate Connection. ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN devoted 74 full segments to flooding in the Midwest, but only one — on CBS Evening News — alluded to the fact that heavy downpours have increased (one percent of coverage). That segment did not explain that scientists have attributed this to climate change, and did not feature any scientists. MSNBC and Fox News were not included in this analysis because transcripts of their daytime coverage are not available in Nexis. [CBS News, 5/2/13]

USA TODAY Only National Print Outlet To Mention Climate Context Of Floods. USA TODAY, which recently launched a year-long series on the impacts of climate change, was the only national print outlet in our study that mentioned climate change in its reporting on Midwestern floods. The Associated Press, Reuters, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal never mentioned climate change in a total of 35 articles on the floods. The Washington Post did not cover the flooding independently. In total, only 3 percent of national print coverage mentioned climate change. [USA TODAY, 4/22/13] [Media Matters, 3/1/13]

Local Media Largely Ignore Climate Context Of Floods. Less than 4 percent of local newspaper articles on flooding in the Midwest mentioned climate change — only 4 of 107 articles. The Kansas City Star, Des Moines Register, Detroit Free Press, Minneapolis Star-Tribune and Indianapolis Star never made that connection. Flooding in the area has nearly surpassed records, leading to four deaths, delays in planting agriculture, disruptions in transportation, and potential health impacts. [The Atlantic Wire, 4/25/13] [Union of Concerned Scientists, 4/30/13] [Climate Central, 4/26/13]

No Coverage Of Flooding Contribution To The Gulf “Dead Zone.” Aquatic ecologist Don Scavia told Media Matters in an email that “most media coverage is missing an important aspect of such flooding. These massive spring flooding events push an enormous amount of agricultural pollution down the Mississippi system and into the Gulf of Mexico. That flux will most certainly create a large dead zone.” He added that conservation policies for farmers “may no longer be adequate” as flooding risks increase from climate change. Indeed, our study found that aside from one article in the Des Moines Register, the media overlooked that flooding increases fertilizer runoff from Midwestern farms into the Gulf of Mexico, further contributing to the “dead zone” there. [UPI, 4/10/13]

Evidence Suggests Climate Change Worsens Flood Risks In Midwest

Warming Leads To More Overall Precipitation. As the Environmental Protection Agency explained, basic physics indicates that warming leads to more evaporation and thus more precipitation overall:

As average temperatures at the Earth’s surface rise (see the U.S. and Global Temperature indicator), more evaporation occurs, which, in turn, increases overall precipitation. Therefore, a warming climate is expected to increase precipitation in many areas. However, just as precipitation patterns vary across the world, so will the effects of climate change. By shifting the wind patterns and ocean currents that drive the world’s climate system, climate change will also cause some areas to experience decreased precipitation. In addition, higher temperatures lead to more evaporation, so increased precipitation will not necessarily increase the amount of water available for drinking, irrigation, and industry.”

The EPA created this map, based on 2012 data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, showing that precipitation in most areas of the U.S. including the Midwest has increased over the last century:

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Bowling Green Subway Station in New York, October 30, 2012, closed after Superstorm Sandy hit. (Credit: AP)

Scroll to the end of this post for an excellent infographic on this topic.

Superstorm Sandy devastated New Jersey, New York, and other areas along the eastern seaboard six months ago on October 29, 2012. It took at least 72 lives in the United States and caused nearly $50 billion in damages. Congress eventually provided $60 billion in disaster relief and recovery aid after weeks of deliberating and partisan bickering. These recovery efforts continue to this day.

Sandy was the worst natural disaster in the United States in terms of destruction and deaths since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, but it wasn’t the only one. In 2011 and 2012 alone, the United States experienced 25 floods, storms, droughts, heat waves, and wildfires that each caused at least $1 billion in damages. Combined, these extreme weather events were responsible for 1,107 fatalities and up to $188 billion in economic damages.

The Center for American Progress conducted an analysis and found that the federal government—which means taxpayers—spent $136 billion total from fiscal year 2011 to fiscal year 2013 on disaster relief. This adds up to an average of nearly $400 per household per year.

Nearly all of this disaster spending was for relief and recovery from these and other smaller natural disasters. Most of these disasters are symptomatic of the man-made climate change resulting from massive amounts of carbon emissions and other pollutants in the atmosphere, which warm the oceans and the Earth. As climate change accelerates, so will federal spending on disaster relief and recovery, which will ultimately be paid for by taxpayers.

The nearly $400 per household spent annually over the past three years could be the beginning of a very costly future as climate-related extreme weather multiplies. This issue brief explores federal spending on disaster relief and offers up recommendations for how we can respond to the potential growth in these expenditures.

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Daniel J. Weiss is a Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress. Jackie Weidman is a Special Assistant on the Energy team at the Center. The authors would like to thank Cathleen Kelly, Senior Fellow, Mari Hernandez, Research Associate, and Mayhah Suri, intern, all at the Center, for their contributions to this analysis. This piece was reposted from CAP.

A 2010 study found “global warming is the main cause of a significant intensification in the North Atlantic Subtropical High that in recent decades has more than doubled the frequency of abnormally wet or dry summer weather in the southeastern United States.” Below, meteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters relates how wild climate swings are becoming the norm in the Midwest, too.–JR

Runoff from heavy rains flooded parts of a cemetery in St. Louis County on April 18, 2013. (Photo credit: Robert Cohen)

By Jeff Masters, via Weather Underground

It seems like just a few months ago barges were scraping bottom on the Mississippi River, and the Army Corps of Engineers was blowing up rocks on the bottom of the river to allow shipping to continue. Wait, it was just a few months ago–less than four months ago! Water levels on the Mississippi River at St. Louis bottomed out at -4.57′ on January 1 of 2013, the 9th lowest water level since record keeping began in 1861, and just 1.6′ above the all-time low-water record set in 1940 (after the great Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s.)

But according to National Weather Service, the exceptional April rains and snows over the Upper Mississippi River watershed will drive the river by Tuesday to a height 45 feet higher than on January 1. The latest forecast calls for the river to hit 39.4′ on Tuesday, which would be the 8th greatest flood in history at St. Louis, where flood records date back to 1861. Damaging major flooding is expected along a 250-mile stretch of the Mississippi from Quincy, Illinois to Thebes, Illinois next week.

At the Alton, Illinois gauge, upstream from St.Louis, a flood height of 34′ is expected on Tuesday. This would be the 6th highest flood in Alton since 1844, and damages to commercial property in the town of Alton occur at this water level. In addition, record flooding is expected on at least five rivers in Illinois and Michigan over the next few days. A crest 1.5′ above the all-time record has already occurred on the Des Plaines River in Chicago. This river has invasive Asian Carp that could make their way into Lake Michigan if a 13-mile barrier along the river fails during an extreme flood. Fortunately, NPR in Michigan is reporting today that U.S. Army Corps of Engineers crews stationed along the 13-mile Asian carp barrier have seen no evidence of the fish breaching the structure, and it would have taken a flood much larger than today’s record flood to breach the structure. A crest on the Grand River in Grand Rapids, Michigan nearly 4′ above the previous record (period of record: at least 113 years) is expected this weekend. At this flood level, major flooding of residential areas is expected, though the flood wall protecting downtown Grand Rapids will keep the commercial center of the city from flooding.

Figure 1. The rains that fell in a 24-hour period ending at 7 am EDT Thursday, April 18, 2013 over Northern Illinois were the type of rains one would expect see fall only once every 40 years (yellow colors), according to METSTAT, Inc. (http://www.metstat.com.) METSTAT computed the recurrence interval statistics based on gauge-adjusted radar precipitation and frequency estimates from NOAA Atlas 14 Volume 2, published in 2004 (http://dipper.nws.noaa.gov/hdsc/pfds/.) METSTAT does not supply their precipitation recurrence interval forecasts or premium analysis products for free, but anyone can monitor the real-time analysis (observed) at: http://metstat.com/solutions/extreme-precipitation-index-analysis/

Damages from the April 2013 Midwest U.S. flood in Illinois, Michigan, and Missouri are likely to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Some of the impacts at the flood levels predicted include:

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Climate change will bring more and more extreme precipitation events this century.

A new study from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center confirms what climate scientists have long been saying about climate change’s effect on the hydrological cycle.

If you are not familiar with this term, you are certainly familiar with what it describes. As the sun warms the earth, water evaporates from oceans, lakes, and rivers, which then form clouds that produce rain and snow. More evaporation happens when the ocean and the air is warmer, which has been happening steadily for some time.

The NOAA study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, found that extreme precipitation events will become more intense this century as the globe continues to warm. Extra moisture expected from that warming will be the dominant factor fueling this increase in extreme precipitation, with a 20 to 30 percent more precipitation in the Northern Hemisphere by 2099.

The paper looked at three factors that go into the maximum precipitation value possible in any given location: moisture in the atmosphere, upward motion of air in the atmosphere, and horizontal winds. The team examined climate model data to understand how a continued course of high greenhouse gas emissions would influence the potential maximum precipitation. While greenhouse gas increases did not substantially change the maximum upward motion of the atmosphere or horizontal winds, the models did show a 20-30 percent increase in maximum moisture in the atmosphere, which led to a corresponding increase in the maximum precipitation value.

Percent maximum daily precipitation difference (2071-2100) - (1971-2000). (Photo credit: NOAA)

They looked at possible changes in winds that could offset increased water vapor, but found that those changes would be too small. We already know that specific events cannot be said to be directly caused by climate change, but as Kevin Trenberth puts it, “All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be.” And we know that NOAA’s projections have already started to become the reality: a study in Nature found that several of the last decade’s extreme weather events would not have occurred without climate change.
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Wildfires in the U.S. will be at least twice as destructive by 2050, burning around 20 million acres nationwide each year, according to a federal report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Scientists from the U.S. Forest Service, who authored the report, found regions such as western Colorado — which already experienced its most destructive wildfire in history last summer — will face an even greater risk fire risk: those regions are expected to face up to a five-fold increase in acres burned by 2050.

The report’s findings are in line with previous studies on climate change’s relation to fire risk: a 2012 study found that wildfire burn season is two and a half months longer than it was 40 years ago, and that for every one degree Celsius temperature increase the earth experiences, the area burned in the western U.S. could quadruple. The findings are also in line with the observed impacts climate change is having on wildfires. Wildfires in 2012 burned a record 9.2 million acres in the U.S., and record-breaking heat and dry weather in Australia provided ideal conditions for at least 90 fires that raged through the country this January.

The report also outlines the other effects climate change will have on the forests of the U.S. The Rocky Mountain forests are expected to become hotter and drier as the planet warms, conditions that in addition to wildfires will lead to an increase in infestations of insects such as the bark beetle, which has already destroyed tens of millions of acres of U.S. forests. One species, the mountain pine beetle, has already killed 70,000 square miles of trees — area the size of Washington state. As winters become milder, weather becomes drier and higher elevations become warmer, bark beetles are able to thrive and extend their ranges northward. An increase in some species of bark beetle can actually increase the risk of forest fires in areas affected by the beetle — the study notes an outbreak of the mountain pine bark beetle, which attacks and kills live trees, created a “perfect storm” in 2006 in Washington, where affected lodgepole pines burned “with exceptionally high intensity.”

David Peterson, a U.S. Forest Service biologist who co-authored the report, told the Denver Post that the destruction the bark beetles have inflicted upon western forests in recent years has been unprecedented:

“We’re getting into extreme events that seem to be having more and more effects across broader landscapes.”

The report also predicts an increase of invasive plants and animals, as well as flooding and erosion due to increased rainfall, higher rain to snow ratios and more burned areas. It notes that U.S. forests offset 13 percent of the country’s carbon emissions, and as trees killed by insects and fire decompose, they’ll emit carbon themselves. Because of the sweeping impacts, the report, which is being finalized for the White House and Congress, calls on forest managers to make “climate-smart” practices, such as thinning fire-vulnerable forests, a priority.

Pakistani flood victims move to higher grounds in 2011. (Photo credit: AAP)

By Vladimir Petoukhov and Stefan Rahmstorf, via The Conversation

The northern hemisphere has experienced a spate of extreme weather in recent times. In 2012 there were destructive heat waves in the U.S. and southern Europe, accompanied by floods in China. This followed a heat wave in the U.S. in 2011 and one in Russia in 2010, coinciding with the unprecedented Pakistan flood — and the list doesn’t stop there.

Now we believe we have detected a common physical cause hidden behind all these individual events: Each time one of these extremes struck, a strong wave train had developed in the atmosphere, circling the globe in mid-latitudes. These so-called planetary waves are well-known and a normal part of atmospheric flow. What is not normal is that the usually moving waves ground to a halt and were greatly amplified during the extreme events.

Looking into the physics behind this, we found it is due to a resonance phenomenon. Under special conditions, the atmosphere can start to resonate like a bell. The wind patterns form a regular wave train, with six, seven or eight peaks and troughs going once around the globe (see graph). This is what we propose in a study published this week together with our colleagues of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

Planetary waves

Normally, an important part of the global air motion in the mid-latitudes of the Earth takes the form of waves wandering around the planet, oscillating irregularly between the tropical and polar regions. So when they swing northward, these waves suck warm air from the tropics to Europe, Russia, or the US; and when they swing southward, they do the same thing with cold air from the Arctic. This is a well-known feature of our planet’s atmospheric circulation system.

However, during several recent extreme weather events these planetary waves almost froze in their tracks for weeks. So instead of bringing cool air after having brought warm air before, the heat just stays. And stays. And stays. In fact, we detected a strong amplification of the usually weak, slowly moving component of these waves.

Time is critical here: two or three days of 30°C are no problem, but 20 or more days lead to extreme heat stress. Since many ecosystems and cities are not adapted to this, prolonged hot periods can result in a high death toll, forest fires, and devastating harvest losses.

The northward wind speed (negative values, blue on the map, indicate southward flow) in the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere. During the extreme event (a record-breaking heat wave in the US), the normally weak and irregular waves were replaced by a strong and regular wave pattern. (Credit: Vladimir Petoukhov)

What does climate change have to to with it?

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Scientist: “With the global warming we have had during the 20th century, we have already crossed the threshold where more than half of all ‘Katrinas’ are due to global warming.”

New Orleans post-Katrina. Credit: NOAA.

By Aslak Grinsted via the Nils Bohr Institute.

By examining the frequency of extreme storm surges in the past, previous research has shown that there was an increasing tendency for storm hurricane surges when the climate was warmer. But how much worse will it get as temperatures rise in the future? How many extreme storm surges like that from Hurricane Katrina, which hit the U.S. coast in 2005, will there be as a result of global warming? New research from the Niels Bohr Institute show that there will be a tenfold increase in frequency if the climate becomes two degrees Celcius warmer. The results are published in the scientific journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, PNAS.

The extreme storm surge from Superstorm Sandy in the autumn 2012 flooded large sections of New York and other coastal cities in the region – here you see Marblehead, Massachusetts. New research shows that such hurricane surges will become more frequent in a warmer climate.

Tropical cyclones arise over warm ocean surfaces with strong evaporation and warming of the air. The typically form in the Atlantic Ocean and move towards the U.S. East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico. If you want to try to calculate the frequency of tropical cyclones in a future with a warmer global climate, researchers have developed various models. One is based on the regional sea temperatures, while another is based on differences between the regional sea temperatures and the average temperatures in the tropical oceans. There is considerable disagreement among researchers about which is best.

New model for predicting cyclones

“Instead of choosing between the two methods, I have chosen to use temperatures from all around the world and combine them into a single model,” explains climate scientist Aslak Grinsted, Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.

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(Photo by Iwan Baan / Reportage by Getty Images)

National Journal’s Coral Davenport has written a wide-ranging new piece laying out the myriad ways climate change, driven by human carbon emissions, is threatening the American economy. The point is backed up by myriad scientific reports: The draft of the upcoming Fifth Assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change determined that, by more than a 95 percent probability, human activities are to blame over half the observed increase in the global average surface temperature since the 1950s.

The draft of the Federal Advisory Committee’s Climate Assessment Report concluded that most of the United States is in for 9 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit of warming given the current path carbon emissions are following, with with ever-worsening extreme weather, sea-level rise, heat waves, deluges, droughts, storms, flooding, and ocean acidification as the result.

Using specific stories ranging from Norfolk, Virginia, to Netarts Bay in Oregon, to St. Louis, Missouri, Davenport illustrates the ways these impending upheavals in the climate and ecosystems can and already are undermining Americans’ chances of recovering from the Great Recession — or of prospering in future decades.

The Economic Costs Of Extreme Weather

Globally, extreme weather and climate change are already shaving 1.6 percent off worldwide gross domestic product — or about $1.2 trillion per year — according to a study by DARA. By 2030, it will be up 3.2 percent of global GDP, costing the United States over 2 percent of its GDP and India over 5 percent.

In the U.S. specifically, the heat waves and droughts that continue to sweep through Texas, Oklahoma and the Midwest have driven crop yields down a food prices up, resulting in record payouts for crop-insurance claims. Davenport cites a 2011 study by the consulting firm Mercer that warned climate change could increase investment-portfolio risk by 10 percent over the next two decades, by disrupting supply chains.

The country is suffering larger and more frequent wildfires, storms are damaging infrastructure and causing power outages and fuel-price spikes, and relief aid for Superstorm Sandy alone cost the federal government over $60 billion:

2011 and 2012 were the two most extreme years on record for destructive weather events. A record 14 weather disasters occurred in 2011, sustaining more than $1 billion each in economic losses for a total of $60.6 billion. Last year brought 11 weather disasters that each cost $1 billion or more; while the total economic loss has not been determined, experts say the dollar figure is almost certain to exceed 2011’s. Meanwhile, the insurance industry estimates that its losses from 2012’s natural disasters will total $58 billion—more than double the average yearly losses of $27 billion from 2000 to 2011.

Alternating droughts and floods have even disrupted shipping traffic on the Mississippi River, and lowered water levels on the Great Lakes have raised shipping companies’ costs by an average of up to 22 percent.

Ocean Acidification And The Marine Industries

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