This thread
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/earth ... -t988.html
is specifically for reporting Climate Science news
and not for discussing it tho short comments are okay and encouraged.

If topics appear that you think warrant more extensive discussion - then please copy the topic to this new thread ( Discussion of Main stream climate change. )
or make a new thread for the topic you want to discuss - either will work.
We are trying to keep the Science News thread with minimal commentary but not shut off discussion of those posts.

I suggest you rephrase the first paragraph to improve clarity of which is "this thread" - the one only for reporting, or this new thread you've created.

Using an imbedded URL link would do the trick:

This is a new thread for more extensive discussion of climate change news. The intent is to keep the Climate Change Science thread uncluttered, though occasional short comments are still permitted.

If more extensive discussion is warranted, please copy the link to a post here, or make a new thread for it.

That's fine wording sir

Is this because of my post about Costa Rica?

Nothing in particular ...working with Ironclad to keep the commentary limited in the Climate News thread and yet have a venue for ongoing discussion of some articles where warranted.
There is no thread for mainstream climate oriented discussion going on as there is for the denial crowd.
Now there is.

People can either open a unique thread on a topic of interest

or use this as a catchall for Climate change discussion that acknowledges the reality of it and to discuss implications...can be as wide ranging as anyone cares to make it with the exception of climate change denial which has no basis in fact.

The global community is rapidly moving to the point where the policy decisions are important and costly .....that's where the discussion needs to be and that's not so much science as public policy
For instance

What the Netherlands are doing ( budgeting a billion Euros a year )

Should some of the low areas in England be abandoned instead of defended ( same thing with post hurricane Sandy - should some areas be written off).

Sandy isn't a really good example - most of the problems from that came not in low-lying areas, but from the huge, slow storm system dumping a shitload of rain - similar to Agnes in 1972.

Better to address more common hurricane areas - Gulf Coast, Atlantic Seaboard areas - as they'll feel much more impact from stronger storms, yet have historically been continuously rebuilt.

And thats exactly what is expected with AGW. More wet mid latitude events - a storms intensity is a combination of wind speed, size and rain /storm speed.

What you are implying is triaging where to protect, where to abandon. These are exactly the difficult policy decisions that home /business owners, counties, cities and towns, regional govs and national govs will be faced with as higher moisture content and stronger temperature/pressure gradients overwhelm aging storm relief systems.

Sandy was a warning that super storms are no longer confined to traditional areas

snip

Next week marks the second anniversary of one of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S history. Superstorm Sandy killed 147 people, left millions without power, and smashed records: lowest barometric pressure of a hurricane to make landfall north of Cape Hatteras, highest storm surge, second costliest hurricane, after Katrina.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... gbooktalk/

Just ask the UK which have just started naming their storms and got 4 severe ones in a few short weeks leading to historic flooding.

No, you miss the point. There is no real option to say that you shouldn't rebuild in the areas harmed by Sandy - they are not flood prone, not in the path of the most likely massive storms, and the damage there simply can't be averted by abandoning the areas. It is altogether distinct from the coastal regions more commonly hit - and which will be even more affected by the larger superstorms.

I don't miss the point at all and some areas hit by Sandy are not being rebuilt.

Cyclone and hurricane prone areas are already armored up. You can't build in Queensland for instance without have cyclone proof house and the northern areas have the flood control systems in place to deal with high intensity rainfall.
Mind latitudes do not.

A combination of rising sea levels ( the east coast of the US is rising faster than other areas ) and increasing storm intensity and that includes non-cyclonic storms plus higher building density on the coast means triaging some areas .....just as some whole towns in the Mississipi flood plain drainage basin were moved.

All around the world nations are deciding what to armor and what to abandon.

Macdoc wrote:I don't miss the point at all and some areas hit by Sandy are not being rebuilt.

Cyclone and hurricane prone areas are already armored up. You can't build in Queensland for instance without have cyclone proof house and the northern areas have the flood control systems in place to deal with high intensity rainfall.
Mind latitudes do not.

A combination of rising sea levels ( the east coast of the US is rising faster than other areas ) and increasing storm intensity and that includes non-cyclonic storms plus higher building density on the coast means triaging some areas .....just as some whole towns in the Mississipi flood plain drainage basin were moved.

All around the world nations are deciding what to armor and what to abandon.

Some time in your life you should travel to the Southeastern US, particularly near the coasts. Or anywhere in Florida.

Armored up my ass.

The areas not rebuild after Sandy were not abandoned due to a strategic decision regarding hurricane safety response, but solely due to lack of flood insurance in areas not prone to flooding or due to limits on Federal emergency response funds withheld by stupid fucking politicians, mostly Republicans, who refused to grant in the Northeast what they regularly demand in the South.

Focusing on Hurricane Sandy as a model to guide hurricane preparedness decisions is strategically fucking stupid - efforts and planning and resources should go where the majority of the hurricanes will go, not to the rare outlying areas which are only hit by a major storm every 3-5 decades.

Unlikely bedfellows

ExxonMobil and Sierra Club Agreed on Climate Policy—and Kept It Secret
A forgotten accord reached in 2009 may yet have relevance for the future of U.S. climate policy

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... -it-secret

SImilar to the situation in Canada...the oil sands companies wanted legislation on carbon when Harper would not even acknowledge climate change as a problem to be dealt with.
Getting past the denial stage is easy compared to actually formulating policy.

I personally do not think cap and trade viable on it's own tho some hybrid of cap and trade for high intensity emitters plus a general carbon tax including on imported carbon intensive products is the way forward.

Sweden has had a $50 a barrel carbon tax on oil since the 90s and are thriving.

They've been building and rebuilding in areas that have always suffered periodic devastation, usually subsidized by the government in some fashion. Rational folk have condemned such lunacy for decades at least, but it still goes on. Maybe that will be seen for what it is as the danger zones expand.

Weaver, you still don't get it do you??....it ALL has to be triaged....you are already doing it....by moving focus off Sandy to places where smart people don't build near the shore anymore and insurance companies have abandoned.

That your mess of a government spends unwisely is your problem.

US urged to abandon ageing flood defences in favour of Dutch system
The US must adopt an integrated model of water management like the Netherlands, says New Orleans senator Mary Landrieu

America, now entering its hurricane season, was today urged to abandon the outmoded "patch and pray" system of levees – whose failure magnified the devastation of Hurricane Katrina – and borrow from the Dutch model of dykes and water management.

Mary Landrieu, a senator from New Orleans who was brought to tears during a helicopter tour of the destruction of 2005, said America needed to rethink its entire approach to low-lying coastal areas and adopt an integrated model of water management like that of the Netherlands.

The US has budgeted $14bn since Katrina to shore up the flood defences of Louisiana and other low-lying areas. "I believe I have found a great model that will work for protecting the people of Louisiana and the people of the Gulf coast," she told reporters.

Louisiana's ageing flood controls rely on a series of levees along the Mississippi river built over the past 80 years by the Army Corps of Engineers.

In the Netherlands, water management is incorporated into urban planning, taking into account parks and other open public spaces that could function as safety reservoirs in case of floods, and also barrier islands and wetlands.

"They have engineers and architects that build a flood control system that is integrated into the landscape," Landrieu said. "We have a one-size-fits-all military model that is out of date – building levees – when we should be managing water."

The Dutch also build to a far higher standard of preparedness than in the US, with structures designed to hold up in even the most extreme storms and flooding conditions. "The system we have now in South Louisiana and in some measures in much of the country is unsustainable," Landrieu said. "It is literally a patch-and-pray system and it doesn't even try to patch us to the same level that is customary in other parts of the world.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... us-defence


The Dutch also build to a far higher standard of preparedness than in the US, with structures designed to hold up in even the most extreme storms and flooding conditions

Queensland used to be a mess until building codes were rigidly enforced.

But we are moving up the mountain anyway before we lose our flood insurance..

Louisiana's biggest problems are the levees and the petroleum industry. The levees prevent deposition of the silt that has kept them going, and the petroleum industry cut huge numbers of canals through them which allows salt water intrusion and further erosion. The wetlands diminish storm surges and storm intensities by a huge amount so their loss results in serious climate change-like problems already. This has some good info: Louisiana's disappearing WETLANDS

Map showing wetland loss in Louisiana. Modified from: LaCoast, U.S. Geologic Society

While Louisiana has 40% of the country’s wetlands, over 90% of the total coastal marsh loss in the continental U.S.’s occurs in the state. It is estimated that between 25-35 square miles of wetlands are lost each year and more than 1,000,000 acres have been lost since the turn of the century. The majority of land loss is in the Barataria and Terrebone Basins, where 10–11 square miles of land is lost each year. Louisiana’s Department of Natural Resources maintains that at current land loss rates, nearly 640,000 more acres, an area nearly the size of Rhode Island, will be under water by 2050.

ANything - likemany parts of Louisiana that are already below sea-level or sinking as New Orleans is will be focus of very difficult policy choices as the century moves along....

My opinion was that Katrina was an opportunity to "migrate" the majority of the city to higher ground.

Macdoc wrote:Weaver, you still don't get it do you??....it ALL has to be triaged....you are already doing it....by moving focus off Sandy to places where smart people don't build near the shore anymore and insurance companies have abandoned.

That your mess of a government spends unwisely is your problem.

US urged to abandon ageing flood defences in favour of Dutch system
The US must adopt an integrated model of water management like the Netherlands, says New Orleans senator Mary Landrieu

America, now entering its hurricane season, was today urged to abandon the outmoded "patch and pray" system of levees – whose failure magnified the devastation of Hurricane Katrina – and borrow from the Dutch model of dykes and water management.

Mary Landrieu, a senator from New Orleans who was brought to tears during a helicopter tour of the destruction of 2005, said America needed to rethink its entire approach to low-lying coastal areas and adopt an integrated model of water management like that of the Netherlands.

The US has budgeted $14bn since Katrina to shore up the flood defences of Louisiana and other low-lying areas. "I believe I have found a great model that will work for protecting the people of Louisiana and the people of the Gulf coast," she told reporters.

Louisiana's ageing flood controls rely on a series of levees along the Mississippi river built over the past 80 years by the Army Corps of Engineers.

In the Netherlands, water management is incorporated into urban planning, taking into account parks and other open public spaces that could function as safety reservoirs in case of floods, and also barrier islands and wetlands.

"They have engineers and architects that build a flood control system that is integrated into the landscape," Landrieu said. "We have a one-size-fits-all military model that is out of date – building levees – when we should be managing water."

The Dutch also build to a far higher standard of preparedness than in the US, with structures designed to hold up in even the most extreme storms and flooding conditions. "The system we have now in South Louisiana and in some measures in much of the country is unsustainable," Landrieu said. "It is literally a patch-and-pray system and it doesn't even try to patch us to the same level that is customary in other parts of the world.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... us-defence


The Dutch also build to a far higher standard of preparedness than in the US, with structures designed to hold up in even the most extreme storms and flooding conditions

Queensland used to be a mess until building codes were rigidly enforced.

But we are moving up the mountain anyway before we lose our flood insurance..

And you persist in not getting what I've been saying from the start - that of course it needs to be triaged, but your initial assertions that we should look at areas damaged by Sandy to start the cutbacks is fucking stupid and demonstrates that, despite all your self-assuredness on this general topic, you have no goddamn clue what local requirements outside your own backyard are.

CUTTING FUNDS FOR SANDY REBUILDING IS EXEMPLAR OF UNWISE SPENDING DECISIONS BY MY GOVERNMENT - you condemn these unwise decisions while insisting on not backing down from your own stupid initial assertion that it was a good start.

For fuck's sake ...

This isn't the strictly moderated thread. You can't simply make unsupported assertions and silence dissent with bluff and bluster.

You know - looking at the last three posts of yours, Macdoc - you do know that Sandy and Katrina were entirely different storms, which hit the US about a thousand miles apart, don't you?

You know - looking at the last three posts of yours, Macdoc - you do know that Sandy and Katrina were entirely different storms, which hit the US about a thousand miles apart, don't you?

That is just about the ultimate bit of stupidity you've ever posted. It surely leaves your understanding of the change in storms and the fields of storm influence as completely missing.

FIrst a cyclonic storm is a cyclonic storm.....Katrina was a high power cyclonic storm known to be relatively common in the regions.

Sandy is also a normal cyclonic storm that was steered by a high pressure zone that was a product of the change in the jet stream and enhanced by high water termperatures further north than historically normal.
The New York regions has had storms like this before and was over due - it was a wake up call .....something that I had posted about a number of times over the last 10 years.

Is NYC Way Overdue For A Hurricane?
Y BEN YAKAS IN NEWS ON JUN 1, 2011 11:50 AM

http://gothamist.com/2011/06/01/experts ... ue_for.php

Sandy's impact is already being triaged as to what will be rebuilt and what will not be...I make no suggestions ....I make observations.

In the two years since Hurricane Sandy flooded the East Coast, New York City has navigated a difficult recovery process. Communities devastated by the storm, including Breezy Point and Sea Gate, have struggled to rebuild, while in Staten Island, residents of some of the most damaged areas have decided to sell their homes to the government and never return. In Ocean Breeze, Oakwood Beach, and Graham Beach, the Governor's Office For Storm Recovery is now purchasing houses, tearing them down, and returning the land to nature.
Choosing a "managed retreat" from the water has actually provided some relief for residents. "It's a bittersweet feeling, but I know that no one else will have to go through this kind of storm," said Joe Herrnkind, who lived in Ocean Breeze for 16 years. "The house wasn't a home anymore, it was a prison."

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/10/2 ... rfront.php

Katrina was warned about, was gamed a year ahead by the local disaster

NOVA | The Man Who Predicted Katrina - PBS
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/pred ... trina.html
PBS
Nov 22, 2005 - For years, Ivor van Heerden, a hurricane expert at Louisiana State University, saw a tragedy coming. Since 2001, he and colleagues had been generating computer models of how a major storm could inundate New Orleans. ... In these interviews, conducted both 10 months before and then soon ..

New Orleans remains at high risk as it is sinking and sea level is rising and the Gulf temps are rising. Fortunately the Atlantic and Gulf hurricane season have been mild ( the relationship with El Nino is not clearly unstood as to mechanism )

What I gather from your posts are ...

You know nothing of the global and changing nature of AGW influenced extreme weather ....tropical and sub tropical storm intensities are moving into mid-latitudes both coastal and inland in UK, Europe and North America due to AGW.

That's my interest and the response of the cities affected

You know nothing of the many thousands of posts I've made on RDF and here.

What I'm looking for in this thread is to move into the discussion of policy reponses to the increased risk AGW poses by way of sea level rises and storm intensity increases.
The Netherlands has a clear path ahead and has allocated the funds.

The US , as mentioned is a patchwork tho the New York response to Sandy is heartening and appropriate

New York mayor unveils $20bn flood defence plan
Michael Bloomberg reveals ambitious measures to protect city from effects of global warming in the wake of Hurricane Sandy

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/j ... plan-sandy

Chesapeake Bay is another very vulnerable area both biome and human habitation

Sea level is rising rapidly around the Chesapeake Bay. Faster actually, than nearly any other place on the East Coast of North America, and only a few spots along the Gulf Coast are recording a faster rate. The reason has been suspected for quite a while, but now a new study published in the journal of the Geological Society of America has confirmed the cause, and the news is not good. The paper is titled Pleistocene Sea Levels in The Chesapeake Bay Region and Their Implications for the Next Century.
http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/arch ... 25-8-4.pdf

Plus it is also sinking.

Ongoing GIA-driven subsidence in the Chesapeake Bay region challenges a region already threatened by sea-level rise. At the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, we use rate consistency to predict ~0.16 m of subsidence for the region in the twenty-first century (using twentieth-century values from Boon and others [2010] that presumably include the effects of groundwater withdrawal). The likely range of average global sea-level rise for the twenty-first century is 0.33–0.82 m, based on a non-aggressive climate mitigation policy (IPCC, 2013).

http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/20 ... sea-rises/

The US responded rather well when poor agriculture practices created the conditions for the Dust Bowl.

The effort to armor or abandon vulnerable areas of the coast line will require a coordinated national effort as is happening in the Netherlands and as is being debated in the UK as to what is appropriate.