I covered this earlier in a post here. Atmospheric Rivers can cause this sort of pattern, read more about them here. If the goal of press releases like this one from USC and the ones from USGS is to scare people and businesses out of the state, this combined with the taxation, waste, business hostile environment, and sluggish economy give just about anyone all the reason they need to pick up and leave. The movie below is from USGS, and gives their view.
USC: California superstorm would be costliest US disaster
A hurricane-like superstorm expected to hit California once every 200 years would cause devastation to the state’s businesses unheard of even in the Great Recession, a USC economist warns.
Researchers estimate the total property damage and business interruption costs of the massive rainstorm would be nearly $1 trillion.
USC research professor Adam Rose calculated that the lost production of goods and services alone would be $627 billion of the total over five years. Rose, a professor with the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development, also is the coordinator for economics at the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) at USC.
That number would make the severe storm scenario “the costliest disaster in the history of the United States̶, Rose said, more than six times greater than the 2001 World Trade Center attacks and Hurricane Katrina, which each caused $100 billion in business interruption.
The storm simulation U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists termed “ARkStorm – or “atmospheric river storm” – is patterned after the U.S. West Coast storms that devastated California in 1861-62.
The storms lasted for 45 days, forming lakes in the Mojave Desert and the Los Angeles Basin. California was left bankrupt after the storms wiped out nearly a third of the state’s taxable land, according to the USGS.
But those storms were no freak event, said USGS scientists, who called the ARkStorm model “plausible, perhaps inevitable.”
The ARkStorm areas include Orange County, Los Angeles County, San Diego and the San Francisco Bay area. The megastorm likely would require the evacuation of 1.5 million people.
According to the USGS, the ARkStorm would:
- create hurricane-force winds of up to 125 miles per hour in some areas and flood thousands of square miles of urban and agricultural land to depths of 10 to 20 feet.
- set off hundreds of landslides that would damage roads, highways and homes.
- disrupt lifelines such as power, water and sewers that would take weeks or months to repair.
Rose estimated the ARkStorm would cause the state’s unemployment rate to jump six percentage points in the first year, a further blow to the California economy that currently has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation at 12.4 percent.
Rose called the severe storm scenario “much more imaginable” after Los Angeles was hit with 9.42 inches of rain in December. It was the wettest December in downtown Los Angeles in more than a century.
Climate scientists said global warming is a major factor behind the increasingly destructive power of hurricanes and other storms.
The sea level is rising as oceans warm and glaciers melt, which can create higher storm surges and more disastrous flooding in coastal areas.
“Climate change affects how the whole ecosystem works,” said Mark Bernstein, managing director of The USC Energy Institute.
“Storms form based on how warm the oceans are and how the jet stream changes,” Bernstein said. “The consequence is [the rain] will come in shorter and more intense bursts.”
Businesses and local governments can minimize the long-term impacts of such a disaster, Rose said, by creating emergency plans, increasing inventories of critical materials, backing up information systems, and diversifying supply chains and routes.
Warn Barbara B. and Nancy P. and have them get the IPCC on to this right away!!!!
And there was I thinking the chief danger to California came from the San Andreas fault causing much of it to fall into the sea. One day.
Mind you that would be nothing if the great crack in Hawaii failed.
Still there you are. Pick your version of the End of Days and then Enjoy. After all the world will go on without you: as will the human race.
Kindest Regards
I’m sorry. Did Rose say climate change was a factor – or did the journalist add in the observations and doodlings of anonymous “climate scientists” into the piece on his own.
Just to be clear.
Oh, good. They even managed to tie in the obligatory global warming scare to make it even worse. I’m sure the global warming in 1862 was a key player as well.
Why are the winds expected to be upwards of 125 mph? Not sure what the mechanism for that would be at this location.
Good background music, though.
If the sky would fall then we will all be wearing a blue hat…
It seems plausible that weather will happen again. We can only protect ourselves to a certain extend. And for the rest we have to stay optimistic and not give in to such doom thinking or we will all go mad…
Wow, didnt know global warming was causing events that happened before to happen again.
A lot of “what if’s” in that cartoon. Sounds to me like a bid for MO MONEY by invoking the Precautionary Principle yet again. Gets tiresome after the first dozen times.
So this event happened in 1861/1862 naturally, and now if it happens in the near future we will blame global warming/climate change for it? They claim that it should happpen once every 200 years or so, but this next time it’s because of climate change? I’m sorry but honestly read what you are saying…your saying that something natuatally should happen in the coming years that will be devestating, but this NATURAL event is because of climate change? no it’s not it’s 100% natural as you pointed out
Scientists warned us that New Orleans could be devastated by a major hurricane years before Katrina hit. We ignored them.
Don’t these people see the obvious contradictions in their article? If global warming is responsible for such destructive storms then what caused the 1861 flooding – buffalo flatulence?
What I find most annoying are terms such as “once every 200 years” weather event. The weather is a chaotic system and such rare events can happen a few years in succession or not for millenia. The forecasting mindset assumes that weather follows a Gaussian distribution whereas it most definitely doesn’t. This isn’t old news as Hurst looked at Nile river flooding and found that extreme events were clustered. He also found that they obey a power law. Mandelbrot investigated numerous time series and came up with the term Hurst exponent (H). For Nile flooding H=0.73 which, coincidentally, is what I’ve found as the H value for many global temperature series. H of more than 0.5 means that there are more extremes as H=0.5 is a simple random walk. OTOH, looking at H for heart rate data over a 24 hour period gives values of 0.1-0.2 which means there isn’t much variation (my own calculations and haven’t gone to the literature to check this yet).
It may be that the warming we’ve experienced was just a coincidental number of warm years and now we’re into a set of cold years which can’t be tied to any one factor. The linear analyses used by climate modelers would be hilarious if it wasn’t for the economic implications of their faulty models.
“… Analysis of Terrorism …”
As if they could prevent a 500-year flood if they wanted to. They have always happened and will continue to happen, that is why 500 year flood planes are defined.
Then by their own term it describes the University of Southern California (USC) perfectly, turned terrorist. Can’t believe such institutions are spewing this meaningless rancor, the only reason being to terrorize citizens. They should analyze themselves instead.
In this case, printed history in the form of newspapers will tell anyone all they ever wanted to know about “Rain Events” in California circa 1861. All who have been through a Pineapple Express El Nino know what they are getting into.
News stories carrying the intent to spread fear and confusion are a big disservice.
It doesn’t rain in California, it pours. Common knowledge and in direct opposition to the meme of impending savage droughts that were broadcast the last few years…and didn’t happen.
After the 76-77 drought, 40 years of scorching drought was predicted…and it didn’t happen.
Global Warming here is a dud, so now the doomsayers want to pick on what is normal and accepted as thier new soapbox.
Do you see them building Arks here?
Robert Wykoff says:
“Wow, didnt know global warming was causing events that happened before to happen again.”
Robert, you need to get up to speed: everything is caused by global warming. And “carbon.”☺
Do you guys realize that according to these “scientists”….
…there’s not one safe place in the entire country
Mike says: (March 7, 2011 at 7:09 pm)
“Scientists warned us that New Orleans could be devastated by a major hurricane years before Katrina hit. We ignored them.”
Can you be the only one who doesn’t know that Katrina didn’t do the damage? It was the stupidity of building below sea level between the Gulf of Mexico and a large lake.
That’s It, that lousy CO2 is to blame!
I’m going to stop drinking anything with CO2 in it. As an ex-pat Brit I’m going to go back to drink flat ,warm bitter ale from the once Great Briton. I’m practicing know with a scowl on my face at the awful prospect. I’ll miss my delicious ice cold micro brewed beers but we all have to sacrifice.
Wait a minute did the alarmist say the the storm of 1861-62, what the hell it obviously had F### All to do with CO2. Are well back to my well stocked beer fridge for a super cold Sleemans Honey brown Ale!
Cheers, here’s to Warmist every where, your all off your rockers but the mini movie was really goooooood..
Wasn’t a storm lasting 40 days and 40 nights mentioned somewhere else… Just who are the religious nuts nowadays anyhow?
Teleconnected thro time ,space and credibility, the marvelous models strike again.This is death spiral stuff ,of the nature, quick our credibility is vanishing, bung out another model, that will save us. Yes global warming causes everything past present and future. All hail global warming and his/hers/its associated lesser gods.
I see this fine piece of the gospel as clear evidence its over.
So let me get this straight. The powers that be seem to think they must inform Californians to be prepared for disasters. Either they think the voting public is really dumb, or they actually are. So here are the basics from my grandmother when on an outing:
Bring enough food for several days, along with hunting chocolate
Bring a sweater and a coat
Bring a rain slicker
Bring matches and a hatchet
Wear clean underwear
Never could understand the thing about clean underwear but it was on the list.
“U.S. West Coast storms that devastated California in 1861-62.”
1850 was the end of the LIA, cold or warm it seems weather happens.
Quote 1:
“The storm simulation U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists termed “ARkStorm – or “atmospheric river storm” – is patterned after the U.S. West Coast storms that devastated California in 1861-62.”
Quote 2:
“Climate scientists said global warming is a major factor behind the increasingly destructive power of hurricanes and other storms.”
This is grand isn’t it – modeled on a pattern from the 1800’s, before AGW was supposedly present, but then turning around & inferring AGW makes this more likely.
Is it any wonder the alarmists have no credibility? Clearly they are banking on the general public being complete morons collectively. Sorry fellas, we aren’t falling for it.
And by the way alarmists, don’t try blaming it on AGW when it happens again – as you have already demonstrated that the last time it happened there was no AGW.
Yet another whacko terror warning ginned up to maintain the “State of Fear.” Your tax dollars in action.
“The ARkStorm areas include Orange County, Los Angeles County, San Diego and the San Francisco Bay area. The megastorm likely would require the evacuation of 1.5 million people.”
Can I have the walled-tent concession in Fresno as 1.5 M folks stream out of the above areas searching for higher ground only to meet in the middle about where they would run out of gas and electrons in their vehicles?
For “clueless” see:
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Massive_traffic_jams,_gas_shortages_plug_evacuation_routes_near_Houston
Quotes: “being on the highway is a deathtrap,”
. . . . . . . “Curses and hand signals were exchanged.”
Jeff L says:
March 7, 2011 at 7:37 pm
Fortunately, most folks just smile and nod when they encounter a “true believer”, then once in the solitude of the voting booth, still manage to do the right thing. Most of the time!
Mike says:
March 7, 2011 at 7:09 pm
Did they? Wow, must have taken some skill to predict a hurricane in the Gulf.
Did they predict anything else in the last 30 years that has come to pass or not? Maybe New York under 20 feet of water? maybe permanent drought in Australia? I assume poley berras are extinct by now, I haven’t seen one in ages.
Got any links Mikey?
I grew up in L.A. and as a kid, I asked my dad why the drains were always empty.
He said they’re not!
Then:
http://www.lastormwater.org/siteorg/general/sdhistry.htm
Now:
http://www.lastormwater.org/siteorg/general/lastrmdrn.htm
Wow, we do learn.
Oh, now I see Pamela mentioned food for several days.
Actually, everyone should bring along about a 3 month supply of non-perishable food and drinking water (more if you expect to bathe) – because there won’t be either where you end up, and you won’t be going back real soon.
Jeff L writes.
“This is grand isn’t it – modeled on a pattern from the 1800′s, before AGW was supposedly present, but then turning around & inferring AGW makes this more likely.”
I don’t know much about atmospheric-river storms, so I’d listen to those who study them. But there’s no logical contradiction between statements like this:
– X has happened in the past.
– The probability of X is changing.
Looks like an advertisemant for tax dollars.
Priceless.
Global warming may cause a storm just like one from 150 years ago that happened before global warming and was completely natural.
Hogwash. Don’t they know that’s what all the wind turbines are for? To break up the wind? Bet they didn’t include THAT in their models. Ha!
Pamela Gray says:
March 7, 2011 at 7:32 pm
LOL!
“…along with hunting chocolate”
Yes, yes, never go anywhere without chocolate…right Pamela?
storm surges on the west coast? have you checked the slope of the ocean on the west coast? too steep for a storm surge in most areas.
“ARkStorm – or “atmospheric river storm” – is patterned after the U.S. West Coast storms that devastated California in 1861-62.”
So what caused the one in 1861-62? Did we have global warming from too many cars at that time?
I would love to see discussion of infrastructure that could both protect property and store water during the occasional heavy California rains, plus during the projected giant rain. Could $50-100 billion dollars in strategically placed retaining walls and earth dams be paid for by reduced flood insurance premiums plus the value of future irrigation water? Or perhaps that would be the cost of the needed Environmental Impact Statements and building permits…
How much would it cost to drain such rain events into Death Valley and other valleys? Death Valley is 200+ feet below sea level, but how much water could it hold if heavy rains hit? And how much could be channeled there from other areas?
If California doesn’t get enough rain 90 years out of 100, and gets too much 5 years out of 100 (and way, way too much once every 200 years), well, that’s a problem, but construction companies would see it as an opportunity.
There ought to be some nifty tools with Google Earth for heavy bulldozing and concrete retaining walls that could hold back or channel water in key places.
It might be a fun project for kids in California schools
In the same vein as President Bush steering Katrina’s surge close enough to NO to overwhelm the dikes, the unusual weather of 1861-1862 was likely the work of President Lincoln. You see, at that time, Southern California was a hotbed of Confederate sympathizers planning sabotage of military installations, gathering arms and heading east. Loyal Union military units in Northern California headed south to quell the uprising and were unexpectedly aided by severe weather which disrupted the rebels’ plans.
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ with it!
ferd berple says:
March 7, 2011 at 8:37 pm
storm surges on the west coast? have you checked the slope of the ocean on the west coast? too steep for a storm surge in most areas.
Correct!
http://www.lastormwater.org/siteorg/education/compslopes.htm
Did they really? This sentence and the couple that follow it are entirely disjointed and unrelated to the main body of the article. Even if some”climate scientists” said that, (apart from the fact that they would be wrong) how is that related to the possible repeat of a storm that happened in 1863.
Just another lame attempt to spin anything and everything as a result of
ManBearPigGlobal WarmingMike says:
March 7, 2011 at 7:09 pm
“Scientists warned us that New Orleans could be devastated by a major hurricane years before Katrina hit. We ignored them.”
Actually, we ignored the sage advice of first Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie and then Led Zeppelin who warned us what happens When The Levee Breaks:
If it keeps on raining levee’s going to break
If it keeps on raining levee’s going to break
When the levee breaks have no place to stay
Since they aren’t warming, we can relax.
Now the alarmists are covered. If it rains too little, the White House advisor who’s been predicting drought was right. If it rains too much, these guys were right. Heads they win, tails we lose.
Let’s tap the brake a bit. The New Orleans flooding was due to homes and businesses being below sea level, poorly planned levees and dikes, poorly built levees and dikes, and poorly maintained levees and dikes. Bad decisions regarding waterways caused subsidence in the 8ft neighborhood leaving even more areas below Lake Pontchartrain’s and the sea’s levels. Katrina was only a class 3 hurricane by the time it hit southeast of New Orleans (notice that it missed N.O.) with winds at about 75mph; not at all a major hurricane. The original part of the city, The French Quarter, was built above sea level and was not flooded. So, let’s not pull that old red herring bulsh.
I confess to not having made up my mind as to whether you’re simply a troll for the fun of it, or are a religious fanatic with all that implies.
cheers,
gary
@ Pamela Gray. You need clean underware because you may get knocked down by an omnibus and you would die of shame if you were wearing dirty underware. Ladies like your grandmother did not go commando.
From Spaceweather.com:
Solar Cycle 24 is heating up. No fewer than three sunspots (1164, 1165, and 1166) are crackling with M-class solar flares, and each of them has a delta-class magnetic field capable of producing even more powerful X-flares. Scroll past the space shuttle for information about a CME now heading our way.
I’m more worried about what a Carrington-type event would do to the US, rather than any inclement weather system!
Alarmist Rhetoric Knows no bounds
A few thoughts from the UK
The voiceover says California was bankrupted by the storm. Seems like Arnie and the team found another way to bankrupt Ca and not a hint of AGW.
As Pilke/Landsea will tell you the great Florida blow of 1926 would cause damage in the region of $175 million all on its own if it happened today.
Cheers
Paul
Gregory Rehmke says:
March 7, 2011 at 8:40 pm
It might be a fun project for kids in California schools
===========================================
Gregory, you’ve simply got to get with the program here… there’s no room for “fun”, and we don’t want to be taking the kids’ minds off the need to be absolutely terrified by the big, bad boogie monster.
Next you’ll be wanting to see things as “educational opportunities”…
Any future flooding in the region will cause far more damage than the 1861 floods, because horses can swim and have common sense, while Priuses, Leafs, and Volts just short out. Sadly, most of the area’s residents don’t have the sense to come in out of the rain (OMG, double rainbow!), much less not to drive an electric car into the water, much less raging floodwaters.
USC: “Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!”
Me: (yawn)
Good to live in a city with the best drainage in California, but it is time to restock my emergency food and water supply.
Only made California very briefly via LA International where they were going to lock my brother up for some customs reason now long forgotten.
Must be an interesting place what with a bloody big ocean on the western side that can turn very nasty and kill you by various methods if you believe the experts, hemmed in on the eastern side with mountains that you can freeze to death in during winter, monstrous wild fires almost as bad as Australia’s that you can burn to death in, huge floods that wipe out everything in their path and can drown you then droughts that leave everybody gasping for water, short on water most of the time because you use too much of it, on a major global tectonic plate junction where some of the biggest earthquakes known have occurred and will re-occur sometime in the possible near future, farmers over hundreds of thousands of acres are stopped from producing food because a frog is in the way, soon to be running short of electrical energy because a section of the populace say it’s generation is too polluting with a minor atmospheric gas that is essential to all life so bang goes refrigeration, food production, medical systems, transport systems of every type, heating and cooling and etc and business of every type, highest unemployment amongst the states of the USA, that close to bankruptcy it doesn’t matter, vehicle restrictions so that only those built for California can be sold, increasing taxes, decreasing public facilities, a near bankrupt schooling system, more government interference at every turn, less and less government by the people, for the people, more and more bureaucrats and public servants demanding more and more of the public purse for less and less work and worse and worse results, populated by more and more illegals and possibly less and less Americans, a crime rate to be proud of and etc and etc!
And people LIVE there???
There I was thinking that the world’s and California’s population and infrastructure had grown since 1861. Silly me!
Yeah, sure…big offshore rivers every 200 years and 196 years if there is excess CO2…but the big story, the one which makes this look like the walk in the park, is Yellowstone blowing up. Now that is caaaatastopheee! We all die and those who don’t wish they had.
No CO2 link so far….but it is early days for the merging of “climate science” and geology. There are proxies out there, as yet undiscovered, which will prove that Deathstar scale volcanic eruptions are driven by forcings caused by increased CO2.
/sarc
Pamela, when I was a schoolboy, my mother told me I had to wear clean underwear every day just in case I was run over by a bus. The shame of me being taken to hospital in yesterday’s underwear would have been too much for her to bear, it seems, but the moral blackmail worked; I can’t bear not wearing clean underwear every day. I have never been close to being run over by a bus and I am now a grumpy old man too.
Where I used to live, north of Auckland city, NZ, we would occasionally experience massive rain ‘dumps’ that dropped up to 3 inches of rain in an hour, with wind gusts up to 120 KPH. It’s not unusual for wind warnings to be issued for the Auckland Harbour bridge in which Hi-sider heavy goods vehicles, cars towing caravans and motorcycles are warned to stay off the bridge. Driving through a ‘rain dump’ is interesting, to say the least.
Only cars and robots have underware. Humans use underwear.
;pp
Ha,ha,aha,..
Excellent example of Communist propaganda from 50s last century. Especially the USGS movie. With one essential distinction – the movie was designed to be watched by New American Man, that is “adult-children” aka moron. Polish propaganda was intended for grown-up people and apart from the aggressive words they knew the texts was pure crap.
The USGS’ TV spot does NOT differ from the tidbit of Polish propaganda from 50s (but please read in full the quotes from Wikipedias below first as the movie is in Polish): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckvmEag99MU
(The War on Colorado Beetle)
1. Wikipedia English:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_potato_beetle
Quote – (emphasis mine) “In 1877, the Colorado beetle reached Germany where it was eradicated. During or immediately following WWI, it became established near USA military bases in Bordeaux and proceeded to spread by the beginning of WWII to Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain. The population increased dramatically during and immediately following WWII and spread eastward, and the beetle is now found over much of the continent. After World War II, in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany, almost half of all potato fields were infested by the beetle by 1950. The government of East Germany used this for propaganda, claiming that the beetles had been dropped by the United States Army Air Forces.[5] In the EU it remains a regulated (quarantine) pest for the UK, Republic of Ireland, Balearic Islands, Cyprus, Malta and southern parts of Sweden and Finland. It is not present in any of these Member States.”
2. Wikipedia Polish (translated via Google Translate)
http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonka_ziemniaczana
Quote – “Plague of beetles in the PRL [edit]
The first beetles were observed in Poland in the 40s Twentieth century, migrants from west to east. Became popular and began to pose serious problems in the 50s According to the Communication Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform stated June 1, 1950 year in the Tribune of the People of the beetle were to be dropped in massive quantities by U.S. planes into the Baltic Sea, where it appeared on the coast and is rife throughout the country, starting against the socialist Poland diversionary-sabotage activities consisting of the greedy consumption of potato crops [2].
The above quote explains the planes flying over beaches on the Polish film. The other part is a carbon copy of USGS comments (emphasis mine):
The authorities immediately declared a merciless war on the beetle. The problem became interested in the highest party and government agents. In August 1951 it took a potato beetles UB [2]. During the 40s and 50, before the widespread use of chemicals to combat insects share organized collection of beetles and beetle larvae. In subsequent years, used products containing DDT.
Gluttonous larvae
The occurrence of beetles were used for political propaganda, mainly “to mobilize the masses.” During the first decades of communist Poland, and especially the 50th year, the Colorado beetle was regarded as the main reason for shortages of food. Occur if the scourge of summer beetles (striped saboteur “) were translated to the public as a wrecking enemies of socialism (” Tribune of the People “in May 1950, headlined the text on Colorado:” Unheard of crime the U.S. imperialists “), and 18 January 1953 the Polish government has resolution on the fight against the potato beetle population (then called the “Colorado beetles).
That’s only one of the hundreds examples one may found in US MSM the USA has become a “red” state nowadays.
Regards
According to the dates on the video the “arkstorm” happens more like every 400 years. I don’t know why they’re saying evey 200 years (assuming they’re not just trying to scare us).
Follow the money. >>The professor and his department will turn this into years and years of policy, planning and development consulting with government agencies and businesses to “help” them prepare for the storm: “USC research professor Adam Rose … with the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development, also is the coordinator for economics at the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) at USC.” >>Actually, if such a storm is inevitable, maybe we should do something. We know an earthquake is inevitable, and we have revised the construction of buildings. The basement if my old apartment building has been reinforced with drywall and “L” braces. >>It’s better than a certain San Francisco law firm, which sued the city of Stockton, California over greenhouse gas production. It seems like such an easy way to practice law: sue government agencies. The opponents are mild mannered civil servants, and the taxpayers pay the attorneys’ bill, all thanks to the California law called AB32-The California Global Warming Solutions Act: “After initiating a CEQA challenge to the City of Stockton’s 2035 General Plan, the firm negotiated a landmark settlement agreement with the City and the California Attorney General, which requires the City’s preparation of a Climate Action Plan, including specific policies and programs to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets within the City.” How much money did the taxpayers pay for that waste of time and effort? I bet the attorneys didn’t even work overtime. Home by 6pm every day.
It is a scientific fact that these 200year cycle weather events ONLY occur in countries which don’t have a written history going back more than 200 years.
According to tree ring data: Atmospheric Rivers hit the north part of Calif. (Yolla Bolly Wild, across Red Bluff to Lassen Pk.)during the MWP, 1023 to be exact. Never been seen again to that degree, almost 1,000 years ago. How do they know the 1861 event wasn’t a 1,000 yr event and not a 200 yr event?
The US Federal Reserves penchant for printing money and devaluing the savings of US citizens will cost more than any storm – why not focus on that?
85% of the last 400,000 years the globe has witnessed an ice age, the last one being just a mere 15,000? (or so) years ago. We are long overdue for its return. Thousands of feet of ice consumed areas now occupied by Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, New York City and Boston. We are in a brief intermission.
We must prepare immediately for the inevitable coming of the ice, we must plan for relocation of all population north of the Mason Dixon Line, and from northern Europe!
Yea, right.
ROM says:
March 8, 2011 at 12:14 am
They don’t just live there, they love it. Then when the jobs disappear, they flee to Texas or other good locales, and simultaneously brag about how wonderful CA is, and bash their new home. Yep, it happens. A lot.
After the California politicians succeed turning the Golden State in the GHOST STATE, even if this storm did occur, nobody would care as nobody and nothing of value would be there.
They are not saying global warming will cause the storm but increased ocean temperatures and higher water levels would magnify the effects of such a storm if it were to happen again.
@Tom in Florida says:
March 7, 2011 at 7:23 pm
Mike says: (March 7, 2011 at 7:09 pm)
“Scientists warned us that New Orleans could be devastated by a major hurricane years before Katrina hit. We ignored them.”
Can you be the only one who doesn’t know that Katrina didn’t do the damage? It was the stupidity of building below sea level between the Gulf of Mexico and a large lake.
—————————-
That is the point. We ignored the very clear warnings. We did not maintain levees, we built in place we should not have and we did not have sufficient emergency planning in place. It was a failure of both parties and every level of government. It is foolish to ignore science when you don’t like the conclusions. We may or may not be able to afford to do everything the scientists would like us to do – that is a judgment call that involves balancing competing priorities and risks. But it is foolish to ignore the evidence when making such determinations as people here seem to advocate.
[snip] /Sac off
We had one heck of a rain storm Sunday nere in MD, glad it wasn’t colder we would have been under FEET of snow. Thank god for global warming! opps, /Sac off again
“Climate scientists said global warming is a major factor behind the increasingly destructive power of hurricanes and other storms.”
It’s a perfect ploy. See, the article isn’t really saying that the storm itself will be a result of AGW, but rather that the intensity of the storm will be bolstered by AGW.
It’s perfect, because it is complete garbage and is absolutely impossible to measure. “Oh wow, this storm was absolutely devastating! But it would have been 20% less devastating had there not been AGW. ” Hogwash. Horsepuckey. Poppycock.
When this happens, it will be devastating, and it will have massive, lingering economic impact. But not because of AGW. And not really because of the storm directly. Because millions of people want to live where the weather is sunny and 73° for ten months out of the year, and are either willing to roll the dice with the natural hazards of the area, or have deluded themselves into underestimating the risks.
_____
George Turner: “Sadly, most of the area’s residents don’t have the sense to come in out of the rain (OMG, double rainbow!), much less not to drive an electric car into the water, much less raging floodwaters.”
You thought “Double Rainbow Dude” was bad, do a YouTube search on “DBOOTS” and watch her movies. My favorite is the one with her freaking out over the rainbow in her backyard while she runs the sprinkler in the early evening sunlight. Another goodie is her going bonkers over lens-flare in her camcorder, which she is CERTAIN is related to the government spying on all of us.
Don’t watch too much of her at once, or you’ll have brain cells committing suicide. But in short doses, she is a hoot.
Southern California’s rainy season commences in November and runs through April, so it was a single rainy season, spanning the two years, 1861-1862.
Right after the end of the rainy season began the first year of the great droughts of the 1860’s. Starting in Mid-1862 and lasting over two years, these droughts decimated the cattle herds, ending the “ranchero”-based economy of Southern California. Near the end of the drought, in 1864, a smallpox outbreak killed most of the native Indian population of the region, which was no doubt severely malnourished and stressed from the two years of drought.
The time period is not far from the end of the LIA and the concurrent population migration clearly brought smallpox to the region. Had these people been as smart as we are, the scientific community of the time would have undoubtedly blamed “climate change” for these disasters.
Mike says: (March 8, 2011 at 7:48 am)
“That is the point. We ignored the very clear warnings. We did not maintain levees, we built in place we should not have and we did not have sufficient emergency planning in place.”
I read your initial short statement, (Scientists warned us that New Orleans could be devastated by a major hurricane years before Katrina hit. We ignored them)
to mean you were agreeing with the models predicting more devastating hurricanes and then blaming the resultant problems in New Orleans on that. My apologies.
Wow, you chaps in the USA have got your work cut for you. Tax dollars being spent on mini movies, this I would expect to come under the umbrella of National Geographic not USGS. There was a true sound bite, “California is bankrupt”. Good luck, seems prudence left long ago.
I think you missed the point. We here in CA are partying. We have deficits climbing orders of magnitude faster than CO2 and global temperatures. Fortunately, when the big one (earthquake, 200/500 year flood – take your pick) hits, the Federal Government will bail us out. Why would we ever get our house in order when someone else will save us from ourselves?
Time to go. My tan needs work, and since I got laid off (at least the unemployment figure is stable at 12.5%), I have time to head for the beach!
/sarc off
(And you wonder why I’m moving out of state.)
Feb deficit spending was $220billions. Could we divert 3 months of that to california. That shouldtake careofit and shut up Rosy loons
New Orleans got crushed because of the failure of levies and dams that were supposed to be able to handle the surge that Katrina caused. Katrina should not have overwhelmed them, but due to either design flaws or poor maintenance they did fail.
This is new Orleans, is anyone suprised that the city governemtn failed in their primary task ? really ??? have you listened to Nagin ? Please …
And it was engineers who would have been warning about storm surge overwhelming the dams and levies, NOT scientists.
You want storms?? Check out this movie clip of the latest coronal mass ejection (CME) from our sun:
http://sungrazer.nrl.navy.mil/index.php?p=images/fast_cme.gif
If Earth gets directly nailed by one of these, toss your iPhone/Android out the window….
I fancied California for this year’s holiday.
I’m telling travel companies that unless they supply a liferaft the deal’s off.
@Tom in Florida says: March 7, 2011 at 7:23 pm …
——–
Tom, thank you. I should have been clearer.
I’ll admit I don’t know what the global temperature was in 1861 but I’m going to guess it was cooler than now. So, the only real evidence we have indicates that these super storms occur when the temperature is cooler, not warmer. Admittedly, it’s only one data point, but that’s one more data point than those who claim the storms are more likely when it’s warmer.
And the message is…. never go anywhere without your boat.
How many bureau-dollars (i.e. taxpayer dollars) went up in smoke here? The House of Reps needs to get out their scissors on the USGS budget and USC grants.
Write a scary report, get a bigger grant. It is a circle. This nonsense has got to stop.
Liberal eco-socialists in Sacramento and local governments cause devastation to the state’s businesses unheard of even in the Great Recession …
Keep on voting for them and Cry Me a River.
This is really scary. It is scary because, according to Mr. Watts comments, it can happen and the human and financial damage may be huge. It is scary because it is a GOLDEN opportunity for the socialists to enslave us more, to get even more power, control and $trillions. In the 1929s (Great Depression) we made a HUGE mistake: Hayek “solution” was pouring more gasoline on the fire while socialist Keynes, based on pseudoscience, recommended lower interest rates that were actually water to put off the fire.
The socialists seized the opportunity presented by Hayek’s colossal error and the consequences for freedom, prosperity and happiness were horrifying: The world saw a colossal advance of socialism, big government and destruction of economic growth, and perhaps some of the super mass murderer socialist states -like Nazi Germany- would have never existed had libertarians never made that colossal mistake.
The correct handling of this unavoidable extreme weather is of extreme importance. Thanks Mr. Watts for this post.
It was just a metaphor.
They’re trying to subliminally tell the citizens that the state is “underwater”.
That’s how they communicate out there in movieland.
Discussing a problem directly is a no-no. Paper dolls are ok.
The USGS’ Arkstorm scenario (((assumes))) no damage will be done to California’s nuclear facilities!!! Sort of blows your mind, but read it for yourself:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2010/1312/
(click the link on the right to see the full report)
Some of the operators of electric generators did not participate in the drill and so at
pg 42 it says:
“Damage to power system components from landslides is not accounted for, nor
is any special consideration made of shutdown of nuclear power plants or of
other generating facilities not in the flooded areas…. These limitations
argue for a more thorough assessment by PG&E and other utilities.”
My question is: when is that going to happen, and will USGS have any money in its budget to pay for it to happen? Call your congressional reps if you care.