Guest post by Steven Goddard
Global warming has predictably struck again.
White said climate change caused by global warming likely is changing ice conditions and adding to the unpredictability.
Kate White is a civil engineer at the Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H., and one of the nation’s leading experts on ice jams.
“I actually think the science around climate change is real. It is potentially devastating. … If you look at the flooding that’s going on right now in North Dakota, and you say to yourself, ‘If you see an increase of 2 degrees, what does that do, in terms of the situation there,’ that indicates the degree to which we have to take this seriously.”
From the Scientific American Blog
River ice generated by global warming in North Dakota
The Red River in Fargo, North Dakota had been expected to crest as high as 43 feet on Saturday, but instead it peaked at less than 41 feet due to freezing springtime temperatures.
The river crested in Fargo at 40.82 feet (12.44 meters) shortly after midnight yesterday, never reaching the 42-foot forecast the weather service expected, which would have put it at the top of some city dikes. The crest broke the record of 40.1 feet set in April 1897.
The river was at 40.27 feet as of 4:15 a.m. local time this morning and was forecast to recede to 38.1 feet as of 1 a.m. on April 5, according to the National Weather Service.
Freezing Temperatures
Temperatures as cold as 7 degrees Fahrenheit froze water running into the river and are responsible for turning back the flood, said David Kellenbenz, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Forks, North Dakota, about 80 miles north of Fargo.
The weather service had said earlier that the Red River could crest as high as 43 feet.
In fact, temperatures in North Dakota have been running about 5-10 degrees below normal for the entire winter and spring.
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/hprcc/nd/Last3mTDeptHPRCC-ND.png
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/hprcc/nd/MonthTDeptHPRCC-ND.png
NOAA’s Center for Climate Prediction had incorrectly forecast a warm winter for the region last autumn.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/archives/long_lead/gifs/2008/200810temp.gif
Using AGW logic, it all makes perfect sense. The models forecast a warm winter. The models were wrong, and instead it was extremely cold and snowy. All that late melting snow caused a flood, so the flood must be blamed on the global warming predicted by the models. AGW Commandment #1 : Reality must never take precedence over computer models.
Author’s Note : Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is now known as “climate change” because the scientists were just kidding when they gave it the original name.
If you build your house on a flood plain, sooner or later, you will get wet. In ND it happens almost every year. The Big Easy found out what happens when you build below sea level a few years back. They all know it is coming, yet refuse to take a common sense approach. Don’t fight Mother Nature, build elsewhere? No, we’ll just spend billion$ more on levees and such.
Some threads back, folks asked about pumping all this water west or at least to places with drought. Why not pump it just far enough to reach the Ogallala Aquafer? We’re draining that much faster then filling it, particularly if T.B.P. gets his plan in place. We certainly have enough excess water in the Mississippi and other mid-west rivers every spring.
If we really get practical, let some of the Mississippi flood over the Delta and replenish the silt that the Caribbean washes away. That would be too much to hope for …
Has anyone bothered to find out about Lake Agassiz? Look at it’s size, location and timeframe of existence. You will no longer be wondering why the Red River is flooding. Like a religion, one has to turn a blind eye to so much history (fossil records, etc. ) to believe the “climate change” doctrine.
I feel compelled to defend CRREL, as many of my former profs and fellow students did a lot of work there (on subjects like the mechanics of ice).
They used-to have the best cold room on the planet.
They were a preeminent facility when they were doing foundations for the DEW line.
Too bad they’ve stumbled out of their element AND gotten lazy, all at once.
There STILL aren’t any Sunspots.
Buy coal.
See here for links to a very nice USGS poster about the history of Red River flooding and its causes. The “landform factors” and “Weather factors” mentioned in the poster are laid out in the post and addressed one by one. The bottom line: Extremely high precipitation in the fall saturated the soil. Then temperatures dropped to record lows in mid-December through mid March. Then the temperatures rose to above normal for about two weeks in the last half of March.
The Red River finally crested at about 40.8 feet, slightly higher than the previous record of 40.1 feet in 1897. I think that even Barack Obama would agree that the 1897 flood was not due to global warming. So where is it between 40.1 feet and 40.8 feet that global warming becomes obviously responsible?
Best regards
ClimateSanity
Al Gore found a way to keep his name in the limelight and to fill his pockets and everyone is falling all over themselves helping him to keep them full.
I do believe we need to keep the planet as clean as possible…but I also believe in cyclical weather changes…
Obviously, the entire AGW – Climate Change – Climate Chaos is a scam.
Ice dams will and will not occur – Ms. White seems totally clueless from what has be reported… Anthony has proved that AGW data lacks credibility and he has created a reasoned forum on climate.
Slightly off the topic…
Sensibly, cities and towns should NOT be rebuilt on FLOOD Plains… flood plains should be used to grow crops as the rivers naturaly flood and deposit minerally rich soil. The crops pull the minerals from the soil and w eat them… much, much better than corporate farms with NPK only – the plants look good but have very little food value.
A lot of people have spent a lot of time building dikes around their homes…now that they are them…cover them with dirt and grass seed and have a permanent berm in place for next year….just build in a flood gate that can be closed after you drive your car inside.
“So where is it between 40.1 feet and 40.8 feet that global warming becomes obviously responsible?”
Well put.
The ’97 flood probably had much more total water involed. Dikes although helping to keep areas protected also raises the river level by reducing the potential width of the river.
If Obama actually said the following his ignorance scares the hell out of me
President Obama has also weighed in.
“I actually think the science around climate change is real. It is potentially devastating. … If you look at the flooding that’s going on right now in North Dakota, and you say to yourself, ‘If you see an increase of 2 degrees, what does that do, in terms of the situation there,’ that indicates the degree to which we have to take this seriously.”
Is he just playing politics thinking appeasing warmers gets votes or does he really believe this. Science could not have been his best subject. This makes me seriously question his knowledge of world affairs.
Retired Engineer (12:00:41) :
You are so right! My family owns a farm/ranch on a fairly small river, with the house and outbuildings located about a mile from the river, built on the highest hill. That hill also will not get isolated during a flood. Nobody in their right mind would build homes in a river flood plain. But some do. There are homes near Austin, Texas, built below the spillway level on Lake Travis. These homes were submerged a few years back, and the MSM played up the angle that these homeowners had no flood insurance. As if any insurance company would issue insurance on homes built in a known flooding zone!
That was me, among others, proposing a NEWTAP federal project to use wind-power to pump Missouri/Mississippi River water to the continental divide in New Mexico where the water would join the Colorado River via tributaries. (National Excess Water Transport Aqueduct Project).
Re recharging the Ogallala, there are stormwater infiltration devices, which are now mandatory in California on some construction projects. These are designed as holes in the ground, filled with a permeable structure such as hollow plastic cubes. The rainwater (such as it is in California!) drains into the infiltration device, instead of into a storm drain. The water eventually percolates into the groundwater. The cost is huge, of course.
http://energyguysmusings.blogspot.com/2009/02/wind-water-farms-and-power-generation.html
An imminently practical idea! That would also go a long way toward combating sea level rise. I once calculated (and observed after the river flooded a few times on the family farm) that much more than 3.3 mm of silt was deposited from a flood. We are told that the seas are rising at 3.3 mm per year (but not lately, according to the data), so one flood per year should balance that out.
“So where is it between 40.1 feet and 40.8 feet that global warming becomes obviously responsible? ”
This question is sooo obvious. 0.7 feet (8.4 inches) is roughly 25% of the value the IPCC predicted the seas would rise. The models predicted this. The sea-level rise won’t be a full frontal assault, we will be outflanked by the rivers. Sheesh, don’t you read the papers?
[sarcasm off]
Wait a minute to see if I am getting this straight, a couple of degrees plus or minus of, say, temperatures 50 years ago or 100 years ago will cause river ice to be so unstable?I would like to see the data on that too.
Reminds me of a story at the University where a native of Poland lucky to get out in the 1950’s with his parents was studying for a PhD in Electrical engineering in the1970’s and lots of exciting things were happening in the field. A grad student studying Civil Engineering comes over and says how hard his exam was. THe EE major says “How can Civil Engineering be that hard and what’s so new in it, “what you’re doing are things ROMANS did and from the looks of things they did a better job,a lot of their stuff is still standing! “Of course it was said in jest.
2) Lake Agassiz ,oh yes, I wonder if the fishing could have been good, do you think it had muskies, Northern Pike( as I don’t know if there is a Southern Pike) and Walleyes. But alas, the open face spin casting reel wasn’t invented yet.
3) I don’t know if the world is better or worse without Lake Agassiz and if the Petrified Forest was still growing. Couldn’t be AGW that did them in.
Steven,
Thank you for the article.
One remark though!
When the winter seaon started, the flooding area was hit by days of heavy rain.
The area was saturated with water when the cold came in.
Now the snow is melting, instant run off of water takes place.
The pre winter saturation and the amount of melting snow is the factual cause of the floods.
Global Warming has nothing to do with it.
There is no Global Warming.
Today Obama announced an International Forum on Energy and Climate to be held in Washington, April this year.
His target is to make a success of the Copenhagen UN Climate Meeting in December.
If they succeed our economies will be hit by an “Atomic Bomb”.
Let’s stop this idiot.
David Ball (12:05:49) :
“Has anyone bothered to find out about Lake Agassiz?”
Lake Agassiz is a direct result of global warming. All those glaciers melting fed into a giant lake. See? Global warming is real. Humans are burning so much CO2, it is going back in time and altering past climates as well as present, hence the changeof name to ‘climate change’.
Jim notes…
“You need to be very careful with this idea. Any sort of flood way increases the flooding downstream. Winnipeg is lucky in that Lake Winnipeg is very close to the outlet of the flood way, so there is not much left of the Red River to flood. If you put a flood way just around, for example, Fargo, heaven help the people immediately downstream.”
I think the point is that a flood way provides more channels and diverts around population centers, you do not have to terminate them back into the river so they flood others, you divert to other areas, like lets say municipal and agricultural reservoirs and the like.
Winnipeg was lucky they have the lake as a terminus, but really do you want me to believe that the only viable flood control system only would simply pass it down the line?
“If you build your house on a flood plain, sooner or later, you will get wet. In ND it happens almost every year. The Big Easy found out what happens when you build below sea level a few years back. They all know it is coming, yet refuse to take a common sense approach. Don’t fight Mother Nature, build elsewhere? No, we’ll just spend billion$ more on levees and such.”
The same thing can be said of people building along the Gulf Coast. I lived in St. Pete, FL for years. I’ve seen the pictures of the “shanties” built along the Pinellas coast line way back when. They were nothing but shacks. Nobody in their right mind was building fancy homes on the beach. The storms would tear them up and/or flood them. You know? Like storm surge and such? I give you Katrina, Ivan, Fran, etc. I guess people forgot about hurricanes there for a while. Mother Nature has reminded mankind of her fury from time to time. Let us all remember: Don’t build our homes on the sand nor in the flood plain!
… fill in the space and have the house raised.
After Galveston was hit by a hurricane in 1900, the city was raised. 2,100 buildings were raised by as much as 17 feet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galveston_Hurricane_of_1900#Aftermath
My submission for this and the Quote of the Week thread:
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” — Rahm Emanuel
It’s becoming obvious that Obama has no ability to think in terms of math or science. He’s at the mercy of the tabloid pseudo social scientists. In addition he’s lacking a bullsh*t meter.
We can’t see his school records, maybe he took no math or real science.
Heaven Help Us!
Studies by Kunkel et al. have found that the frequency of high precipitation events were equally high in the period 1895 – 1905, so an event such as Fargo isn’t something unusual, although it can be used as a poster child.
Temporal variations of extreme precipitation events in the United
States: 1895 – 2000
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/DaveLegates03-d/Kunkeletal03grlextremeinUSA.pdf
This paper by Pinter et al. last year looked at floods in the Mississippi River system and concluded that “the largest and most pervasive contributors to increased flooding on the Mississippi River system were wing dikes and related navigational structures, followed by progressive levee construction.”
Flood trends and river engineering on the Mississippi River system
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL035987.shtml
We are arguing politics people. Science left the building when the sprinkler system kicked in.
NC (12:53:41) :
“…. does he really believe this. Science could not have been his best subject. This makes me seriously question his knowledge of world affairs.”
Like most leaders he relys on advisors to supply the knowledge and the wives of friends, you can call them seceretaries, to supply the diplomacy.
Using AGW logic, it all makes perfect sense. The models forecast a warm winter. The models were wrong, and instead it was extremely cold and snowy. All that late melting snow caused a flood, so the flood must be blamed on the global warming predicted by the models. AGW Commandment #1 :
UK winter of 1947, it was extremely cold and snowy, all that late melting snow caused a flood, was that AGW, just weather.
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/1947winter.gif
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/NottsFloods1947.jpg
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gesc_b/Pages/Index.html
UK 1947
So, scores on the doors for 1947; over England and Wales 1947 had the worst snowfall in 150 years, some of the worst floods on record in the ensuing thaw, the coldest February since records began in 1659 and the wettest March since records began in 1766. Spring was one of the 4 wettest on record and later in the year August was the 4th warmest and 2nd driest on record. The summer was the 6th warmest since 1659. October, and autumn as a whole, were the 6th driest since records began in 1766.
Clearly an incredible amount of extreme weather over the country throughout the whole year. Makes you wonder what today’s press would have made of it all!