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.
Take me to the river
Dip me in the water
Maybe the head line should read, Mini-Ice Age aggravated by human intervention
The flood plain around Fargo is miles wide. I’ve driven there many times. The flatness of the terrain is evidence of the historic flodding. No doubt caused by silt depositied over centuries.
As I mentioned on another thread, warmer temps would reduce the flooding as has been the case over the last positive PDO period. I remember lots of flooding back in the 60s and 70s. Much less in recent years. Warmer temps lead to more winter thaws which reduce the amount of snow melt in the spring.
let me splain how dis wurks. Cold makes snow and ice fall, snow and ice turn to water, water mixes with soil, volume of water expands.
If you have 19 feet of snow and ice you get Katrina level water event.
If it’s too hot it’s global warming. If it’s too cold it’s global warming. If Aquarius is rising and it’s a good day to eat lettuce, it’s global warming. These loons would have blamed it on capitalism, but that scapegoat was already taken.
Wandering OT….thanks to the concept of a north flowing river in spring.
Does anyone attempt to calculate the volume of river silt filling the coastal floors and building new land? How much silt is now restrained by dams? How much silt used to get deposited on farmland before flood control and levees?
Is there really new water being added to our atmosphere from comet debris? How much?
Do hot little iron meteorites pepper the seas with fertilizer?
What parts of the oceans get deeper and wider from shifting tectonic plates? Surely as continents get slowly uplifted or sink, ocean capacity would change. Volcanoes belching forth the inner earth into the seas surely change the volumes. Who’s measuring this stuff?
Is much of Greenland really sunk below sea level now due to the weight of the ice so if it melted it would be the same as Arctic salt water ice in volume?
Surely the collapse of the Atlantic cod fisheries has reduced ocean volume. Haha.
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me.
does anyone read all this stuff? I mean the blog is sort of interesting then you get all the ignoramuses jumping in it takes more time then I have to find an interesting reply, and Im sure there are some
Robert Bateman
You make a very valid observation about the sun being at low activity and not helping at the present the flood situation. This is the second reason I think cooler climate may prevail for the next 2-3 decades. The current solar projections are calling for quite low solar cycles for the next two soalr cycles [20 -25 years]. During the last negative PDO CYCLE we had the benefit of the strongest solar cycle in modern times , namely # 19 . With no such extra solar boost for the next 20-30 years , plus a negative or cool PDO and more cooler La Nina’s , and a cool or negative AMO as well ,the central US high plain states and Canadian Priries will get more frequent cold weather and a greater risk of more snow than normal,and when this all melts in the spring, more frequent floods . Yet the sad part about all this is that instead of preparing for this future risk [putting more infrastructure money into flood controls [like Winnipeg, Canada did in the past after they had a devastating flood], people arebeing urged by the government to prepare for unprecedented global warming and the money is going to areas like to replace perfectly good power plants that do not need to be replaced with expensive nuclear power plants that have even a greater risk to humanity on the long run. Very expensive carbon storage is another dead end approch draining money for a useless purpose.
stageupn
Alors on parle du climat? soit, il fait beau!!! 🙂
Just barely broke the record from 1897. Global warming in 1897 caused the river to be just as high? Wonder if the man-made structures, levees, sandbagging, and the like, helped the river make this record crest. Were these structures in place in 1897? If not, would the 1897 flood have been higher than this one with those structures in place?
Mike Bryant (14:49:48) It’s even better than you said, from your link, snow extent for March 30th:
2009 27.8%
2008 24.3%
2007 17.9%
2006 13.9%
2005 13.9%
2004 08.9%
Does anyone else detect a trend?
Brian.D
PDO records show 1897 was also negative or cool PDO year like 2009 .Back then probably fewer people lived along the flood plain and the risk was perhaps smaller.
Are people ever going to get it that global climate change does not automatically mean warmer weather? Weather does not equal climate, people. Climate is weather patterns over a very long period of time. Just because it was cold this year instead of the predicted heatwave does not mean that climate change is not occurring.
For instance, in Fargo this past fall, we got a ridiculous amount of rain (which was not only unusual, but also raised the water table significantly). One of the effects of global climate change is increased preciptation.
We also got two ridiculously harsh blizzards over two consecutive weekends and we are about to get another, after very little snow over the rest of the winter. Another effect of global climate change is increased severity of storms and weather patterns.
So while the flood itself may not be directly affected by global climate change (although please note that March both “came in like a lion” and is now going out like a lion; nothing lamb-like about this upcoming storm), increased precip did contribute significantly to the flood.
See? Global climate change does not equal automatically warmer temps! But it DOES mean higher and more severe precipitation. Can we all memorize that now? Thanks.
I’m off to go sandbag and stock up for the impending blizzard.
P.S. I was born & raised in Fargo and still live here. But thanks for your interest in my humble city, however misplaced.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/lanina/tdist/fmaninatc.gif
mostly cool or negative PDO years.Notice the cold areas
Vintagegenta – you missed the memo that said the “global warming” (aka climate change) is also going to cause increasing and unstoppable desertification due to lessened rainfall.
So here’s the rules, so you can keep score:
If there’s more rain, it’s global warming.
If there’s less rain, it’s global warming.
If there’s more snow, it’s global warming.
If there’s less snow, it’s global warming.
If there are hurricanes anywhere, it’s global warming.
If there are tornados anywhere, it’s global warming.
If anything bad happens anywhere on the surface of the earth, it’s global warming.
See how easy that is?
vintagejenta ,
Note that NOAA’s climate prediction center forecast a warm winter for you. That should give you a lot of confidence in the models behind the AGW theory you have embraced.
crosspatch (09:41:49) : We should stop paying to rebuild from “flood disasters”. Move the city out of the flood plain.
Never has more truth been spoken.
At a minimum, everywhere they put up a sandbag dam ought to be turned into a concrete wall, but that spoils the views and reminds folks they were stupid to live there. The best solution is as you stated:
If an area floods, or can be shown to be in the (pick one: 25, 50, 100 year flood plain) it ought to have a dike built on the 100 year contour line (for the 500 year event 😉 and anyone on the other side told:
1) You are on your own if you stay on the wet side.
2) There is a nice spot of land for your neighborhood in NewTown here, on the dry side of the levy, homes will be moved for free for 1 year starting now. When you move, the land on the wet side joins River Park.
3) All lands on the wet side of the levy are condemned for future construction. Anything is washed away, that spot is now part of River Park.
And in some cases this has actually been done… (modulo some details like the 100 year levy).
Oh, and I just have to ask:
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,’
If it was a 2 degree warmer winter would not less snow have fallen and more rain? Would there not be less snow to suddenly melt making floods? Less ice dams? I don’t see a lot of sudden snow melt flooding going on in Florida…
It would appear to me that the AGW supporters have confused the climate /weather language somewhat. First they used the term GLOBAL WARMING and predicted unprecedented warming starting immediately [0.21C in each of the next two decades ]. When this proved to be in error several years ago and the planet started to cool instead , the term was switched to CLIMATE CHANGE . We are now asked to stop climate change. Well climate change has been with us ever since records were kept and natural climate variability is the name of the game on this planet . You cannot stop it. Every natural weather and climate event like this flood or the latest drought in California, if only slightly more severe than the last one, is falsely blamed on manmade greenhouse gases .Now that this latest term is being proven to be wrong as well, a new term is being used REDUCE THE CARBON PRINT. This term will also prove to be wrong as Nature knows how to deal with excess carbon.It is not a threat . It has done so well before we came on the planet. However they have forgotten the term REDUCE POLLUTION which was the legitiamate fight until the global warming sidetracked everyone and which involves real pollutants like NOX, SO2, CO, GROUND LEVEL OZONE, SMOG, LEAD and particulate matter. These kill people. When were lower targets for these real pollutants last discussed in the headlines . Weather we are talking about short term or long term , reducing real pollutants should be our battle. Becoming aware of natural climate cycles that cause floods like the one this year and learning how to better prepare for them is also a worthy goal instead of chasing dead end goals like reducing carbon.
Harold Ambler (10:17:49) : “The North Dakota National Guard hauls volunteers by truck through floodwaters in Oxbow. In one Fargo neighborhood, mandatory evacuations were ordered after cracks were found in an earthen levee.”
Well there’s your problem, kids: “Oxbow”
An oxbow lake forms when an old river channel is cut off by the river cutting a new channel across the ends of the “omega” shape, leaving behind a lake.
Simple solution, as stated by crosspatch: get out of the flood plain.
A river, on geologic time scales, is like a worm wiggling in a low spot. It wanders back and forth. Banks erode at the outside of turns and dirt deposits on the inside. Eventually this makes the loop so large that it cuts itself off and leaves an oxbow lake behind. Wait long enough and the new straight channel will cut back sideways into new wiggles and reclaim that oxbow.
We have just been so incredibly arrogant as to think we can stop this process without any consequences and so self centered as to think that our perception of time is the only valid one. Old Man River runs on a different time scale and does not think much of our activities. Just leave him alone and step back to a nice vantage point to watch. Enjoy River Park in the summer, fall, and even winter. Spring melt, not so much…
An Never Ever build a home in a place name “Oxbow”.
Re the comments regarding building in a flood plain. Fortunately or unfortunately, the best farmland is located in flood plains, the rich soil being deposited as flood sediment over time. Flood plain land is also the most easily irrigated because it’s the closest to the level of the river that runs through it. The best harbors for unloading ships are also, gulp, usually located on flood plains.
To those who continually comment that anyone who lives where fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, etc. may occur: please tell me where this magical location exists that has no potential for any of the above scenarios, and we can all live there, although we’ll probably all starve to death.
OT: Just had a 4.4 earthquake on the fault I was worried about at the start of the month:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Quakes/nc40234037.php
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Maps/US2/36.38.-123.-121.php
Just a nice little window shaking roller where I am, but it may not be the last on that system. I’m still holding out for something bigger at the next peak / king tide area:
hiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/are-we-quaking/
The latest comments are more about spin-orbit coupling, but the early discussion was about quake / spin / tide coupling…
http://facstaff.unca.edu/chennon/classes/atms223/ppt/climatic_oscillations.ppt#298,44,Slide 44
SLIDE #44 Well illustrates why there is more rain, snow and cold during the current cool PDO and winter La Nina for the northern US states and the Canadian western provinces. These events have been happening for hundreds of years.
The bumper crop of snow in the Alps will be melting soon. Could be interesting.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4905666.stm
The winter of 2005/6 will remain long in the memory
Nice one mate! … Keep ‘em up … my blog is at http://abhi.com.np/blog/
Please do review it too and give me some comments on it too.
Interesting way to quote Obama:
“I actually think the science around climate change is real. It is potentially devastating. …”
(Ooops – something he said got snipped with … – what might that be??)
“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.”
What he said that you snipped out with was:
“Which is going on right now. Now I can’t ascribe that in particular to climate change.”
So why was the part where he specifically DID NOT attribute this to climate change omitted? In doing so you make it appear as though he was saying this was caused by climate change. But then I suppose if you had left it in the folks posting comments here wouldn’t have as much to get worked up about would they?