From the Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Last weekend there were highly damaging floods over Northwest Washington, with the town of Sumas and its vicinity being inundated by floodwaters. Several landslides occurred, including some that closed I5 near Bellingham.
Town of Sumas, 2021, WSDOT Photo
Within hours of this heavy rainfall event, politicians and the media were suggesting that this event was somehow unique and the result of global warming.
For example, Governor Inslee called the flooding an example of “a permanent state of attack by the forces of climate change.” The New York Times claimed that flooding in Northwest Washington was caused by climate change (see below)
Similar claims were found in the Washington Post and the Guardian. And, of course, the Seattle Times had several stories, supported by a slew of “experts” (such as a Simon Fraser Professor) stating that climate change contributed to the flooding.
The truth is very different than these claims. The Sumas area is extraordinarily prone to flooding and has experienced flooding many times before. And as I will demonstrate below, there is no evidence whatsoever that global warming caused the heavy rainfall associated with this event.
A Flood-Prone Region
The town of Sumas is within the historical flood plain of the Fraser River, with an additional flooding threat from local rivers such as the Nooksack (see maps below from a 2005 report by Dr. Jacek Scibek and Dr. Diana Allen of Simon Fraser University)
Importantly there was a large historic lake near Sumas and Abbotsford (Sumas Lake) that was drained for use in agriculture. In short, a low-lying, historically wet area that has always been prone to flooding.
Previous Flooding
Flooding is not a new visitor to the Sumas area, which has experienced flooding many times during the past century. The streets of Sumas was similarly flooded in February 2020 (see below)
And there were many previous major floods, including those in 1990 and 1951, to name only a few (see some more examples from the Whatcom County analysis of flooding events). You build a town in a historical river delta in one of the wettest portions of North American, you can expect trouble.
To say that flooding in Sumas or the region is something new, unprecedented, or unique is simply not correct. Those making such claims should have spent a little time examining historical floods of the region..
Global Warming And Heavy Precipitation
There has been a LOT of handwaving about the heavy precipitation during this event, claiming it was the result of global warming. Or that it was greatly enhanced by global warming.
Yes, we had a major rainfall event, but to make a claim that global warming was the origin, it is necessary to demonstrate that there has been a progressive increase in heavy rain, something that would be a sign of a global warming origin.
Let’s look at the data. Karin Bumbaco, Associate Washington State Climatologist, graciously provided me with plots of annual maximum 24-h rainfall at Bellingham, WA, and at the nearby Clearbrook official climatological observing site, with the latter having a very long record (see below).
There is NO HINT of a trend towards more extreme precipitation at either of these sites. According to Karin, the big peak in the mid-1930s was from an error in putting two days of rainfall into one day.
Such a lack of evidence of global warming is consistent with state-of-science regional climate modeling, which found that climate models (driven by very aggressive increases in greenhouse gas emissions (RCP8.5) did not produce significant increases in 24-h maximum precipitation in the area over the past half-century (results for Bellingham is shown below). By the END of the century (not shown here), aggressive global warming will increase the heaviest precipitation…but that is in the future.
But wait! There is even more evidence against a global warming contribution to this localized heavy precipitation event.
The origin of this event was a moderate atmospheric river, in which a narrow plume of water vapor was forced upward by out local mountains (see plot of water vapor at 4 PM last Sunday).
If global warming was important, then one would look for above-normal sea surface temperatures along the atmospheric river’s path, which would provide additional moisture to the air.
Below are the sea surface temperature anomalies (differences from normal) for the period leading up and including the atmospheric river in question. It was cooler than normal immediately off our coast and near normal for virtually the entire path of the atmospheric river. With La Nina conditions, the water temperatures near the equator were BELOW normal. No sign of a global warming contribution.
Forest Fires Did Not Contribute to the Flooding
In desperation, some of the global warming advocates are suggesting, without a shred of evidence, that the forest fires from last summer were contributing to the flooding. Specifically, they claim that debris from the fires and less absorptive capacity of the burned landscapes resulted in more water and material entering the rivers.
We can see how much of the land immediately around the flooding areas was burnt using NASA MODIS imagery (see below for October 31st, when it was clear). Recently burned landscapes have a reddish hue (I have indicated an example of a recent fire, east of the Cascade crest, with a red arrow.
It is obvious that there are no major burnt areas around the flooding area or the associated river basins that received heavy precipitation during this event. So wildfire burnt areas did not make a contribution to these fires.
Snowpack
Another claim, as found in the New York Times, was that there was low snowpack (due to global warming) before the flood, leading to a reduced capacity to soak up the rainwater. But that was not true: the snowpack was well above normal prior to the event (USDA Snotel map a few days before the flood is shown below). The snowpack was well above normal…..not exactly the kind of situation associated with global warming. I mean MUCH above normal.
Epilogue
It is both concerning and problematic that some local politicians, local and national media, and even some scientists are willing to stretch the truth about the origins of this serious flooding event, suggesting a major contribution from global warming (frequently called “climate change”.
Society can not effectively deal with environmental threats when it is provided with hyped or false information. And providing such false information, even in the hope of motivating people to “do the right thing”, has substantial ethical problems.
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The real cause of the flooding in Canada was bureaucracy. The problem had been studied to death but nothing had been done to make correction. The reason is simple. The only time you can get fired in government is if you make a mistake. And if you sit on your hands you can never be found to have made a mistake.
So the civil servants quickly learn to do nothing and hate productive people that make everyone else look bad. The productive people get quickly weeded our because they are the only ones making mistakes. The folks that are left get nothing done, but they are no worse than the person sitting across the table so they can’t be fired.
And as a result, high priced consultants are called in to make studies of the problem but these studies never do anything except eat up the budget.
I recall reading somewhere that in some places the Fraser is now 60 feet above the floodplain because of silting. A disaster waiting to flood greater Vancouver. Either you must regularly dredge the river, build the levees higher, or sell your house and move to higher ground.
Ok, joining this discussion from the Canadian side. News media is conflating two different flooding pathways here. 1. Sumas Flooding. Yes, Cliff is right about how and why it happened.
BUT that brings us to #2. The flooding that destroyed the Coquihalla Highway in the mountains further east of the Sumas Prairie flood. This is steep rugged terrain, which was hit hard by forest fires last summer. No root systems and trees means those slopes are prone to slide. In addition, October saw heavy snowfall on those slopes and mountainsides. Then the Pineapple Express hit with very warm temperatures and lots of rain in a short period of time. It was a combination of all three things that proved fatal: the snow melted en masse, the denuded slopes could not soak up the rain-plus-snowmelt fast enough, the resultant slurries and mud took out more terrain downslope winding up clogging then overfilling streams, creeks and rivers and then, ultimately, destroying bridges. Water plus gravity is relentless and destructive.
Press coverage of these two separate flooding issues has been lazy, and assumes that the Sumas event and the mountain highway destruction are the same issues. No they are not.
Yes, but then people go full scientologist and talk about “unprecedented fire year” but it takes 30 seconds on the BC govt website to find this year was 2.5 times the average area burned, well above average but only 65% of the record.
And about .60% we’re human started so with more common sense and perhaps less arson (hello california sociopaths) it would have just been average?
It’s likely the designers of the Coq knew about these events that seem to happen every 50-60 years but decided that try and build to survive that would stop the whole project which was hugely expensive in the first place.
California Super Flood also caused by global warming?
In the 1840s and 1850s, California was exceptionally dry, so by the fall of 1861, California ranchers were hoping for rain. In late November they got what they were wishing for—and then some. It didn’t stop raining for 43 days, and by January 1862, the Central Valley was filled with an inland sea. It was the largest flood in the recorded history of California. Huge storms like these are now known as atmospheric rivers. Atmospheric rivers strike the U.S. West Coast several times a year on average, but can strike even more often in a particularly stormy year. Megastorm atmospheric rivers, like struck in 1861-1862, occur about every 150 to 200 years and probably pose a greater risk to the state than earthquakes.
https://www.earthdate.org/node/157
The circulation does not change, as I wrote there, is a persistent pattern caused by ozone accumulation in the north of Pacific.
http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mtpw2/product.php?color_type=tpw_nrl_colors&prod=alaska×pan=24hrs&anim=html5
Snow in the mountains will soon exceed 3 meters. Rainfall in flood-affected areas is increasing.
Global river runoff is declining. However the rivers in the northern latitudes have a slight increasing trend while the tropical and southern rivers are declining. These trends will intensify as the precession cycle moves on:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/11/14/global-water-cycle/
I live in the tropics and can attest that this year we didn’t have a dry season.
Politicians are not necessarily “stretching the truth” when they blame climate change – they are just too stupid to understand the truth. They are repeating the things that people they think are smarter than they are have said. Same can be said of most climate “scientists”…they are too stupid to understand the truth.
The problem boils down to awarding these incompetent people with degrees and jobs that require an understanding of how science actually works. I blame the education system which has been hijacked by people intent on agendas, not on anything approaching the truth.
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4659523
From the Communist Bullshitters Collective no less
Also, on another site someone reminded me we used to call these things the Pineapple Express
But I guess that wasn’t scary enough and so let’s go with “atmospheric river”
That’s the ticket
Sciency and fearful
The article is well written and objective, except for one assertion: “[certain people] … are willing to stretch the truth about … .” Those people are never satisfied with merely stretching the truth; their claptrap is wholly unconstrained by anything resembling truth. They make it up as perceived need demands in service of their great cause.
28 (& 7) day spacing:
<a href=”https://climate.weather.gc.ca/climate_data/daily_data_e.html?StationID=51442&month=11&day=16&Year=2021&timeframe=4&Month=11&Day=16″>data</a>
A deceptive photo. Water knee-high near the creek, which is full of trees and hasn’t been dredged for years.
All these claims that climate change is the cause of weather incidents are false, being part of the UN and its acolytes such as the IPCC PR machine pushing the False CAGW message.
The UN is now a political organisation infiltrated over the years by covert leftwing/marxist activists and should be defunded.
“And providing such false information, even in the hope of motivating people to “do the right thing”, has substantial ethical problems.”
And if you disagree with them they imply that you’re an idiot. Some religious fundamentalists think the world started only 4-5 thousand years ago. The climatistas think it started only several decades ago.
It is pretty stupid to suggest the flooding of a fertile floodplain valley is an abnormal event. And just like forset fires, man has much to do with the resulting disasters such as damming, levy building, water wells, intentional diversions, bridges, piling, etc, etc. that have nothing to do with climate.
The coming night will be frosty in eastern North America. The jet stream continues to wave hard over North America.
Another front with rain and snow in the mountains will reach the west coast tomorrow night.
You have a lot of credentials here talking over their areas of expertise. Global warming by man requires a source of heat. Hot excited energy always transfers to cold.
Have you ever gone for a ride in a cold air balloon? It is safe to hang outside the basket because the balloon would never leave the ground. That heated air is lighter.
The professionals here that do not believe man is heating the atmosphere need to put on a bathing suit, bare feet and go onto a shingled roof.(have an ambulance on standby)
Anthony Watts and I first had dialogue when this website showed a weather station inside the urban heat island of a city. My team had imaged buildings in 7 provinces and 26 states specific to UHI being urban heat generators right after sunrise. AC is in fact refrigeration requiring a big electrical demand. The imaging and time-lapsed video you will see here is not an illustration. It is very accurate and when challenged by Hydrologists. We were within one tenth of a degree C imaging groundwater from a helicopter.
https://youtu.be/EA3py3us5VM