20-Year Intense Downpours to Occur Every Six

[RedEarth]

Source: ABC

New Government Report Details Impacts of Extreme Weather on the U.S.
By CLAYTON SANDELL and BILL BLAKEMORE
June 19, 2008 —


As President Bush tours Midwest flood zones today, a new administration report on extreme weather warns that human-induced climate change is making heavy downpours more intense, with storms that used to occur every 20 years projected to occur every six by the end of the century.

"As greenhouse gasses increase, the faster they increase, the more extreme weather and climate events we'll be seeing," said Thomas Karl, co-editor of the report and director of the National Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate offers the administration's first major compilation of existing scientific research examining the present and future impact on the U.S. from more frequent heat waves, more intense rainfall and flooding, potentially stronger hurricanes, drought and even wildfires. The 182-page report to Congress calls the extremes "the most serous challenges to society in coping with a changing climate."

One of clearest trends in observed records is an increase in the number and intensity of heavy precipitation events, the report says. Over the last century, for example, days where it has rained more than four inches in the upper Midwest have jumped 50 percent.



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5204034

[emmadoggy]

1. K & R .

[truthisfreedom]

2. We had 20 minutes of 2" hail a couple of weeks ago here. Completely unheard of.

I've never seen anything like it. The highway's low spot on the way to one of my properties was 2 feet deep solid hail, all of hit having rolled down the hill. People drove into it and the hail shot out from their car wheel wells like golf balls, smacking other cars and flying all over the highway. One of my buildings sustained $10k in hail damage (smashed condenser fins on two HVAC units) and I don't yet know the damage on my home. My insurance agent told me there were more than 20,000 claims from that single storm alone.

[Ysabel]

6. we've had softball size hail several times in the last few years...

really freaky...

[frylock]

8. did you get in any BP?

[Ysabel]

12. BP...?

[frylock]

13. batting practice

:P

[Ysabel]

16. oh lol...

i don't know a whole lot about sports...

:D

[nbcouch]

3. Tornados in January, utterly unprecendented

An increase in severe weather of all types is a necessary and foreseeable consequence of global warming. The experts have been telling us that for decades. Time to elect someone who gives a shit.

[WheelWalker]

4. k&r

[Myrina]

5. I had been wondering ...

... if Mother Earth was trying to create a new rainforest here in the Midwest to offset all the damage done to the Amazon in the Southern Hemisphere ... or if, as one of my Sustainable Development Professors used to theorize 'she's going to tire of us and roll, rumble and rid herself of us like the parasites we are' ...


:shrug:

[Spouting Horn]

15. Sad

that so many humans consider themselves "parasites."

How can one live a happy life with such a low esteem of themselves?

[catrose]

7. I was wondering back when I was a teenager

why I'd been through 3 100-year hurricanes before my 18th birthday.

BTW, I haven't been a teenager for more than 30 years.

[raystorm7]

9. The mid-west will turn liberal soon enough the hard way =P

[DLnyc]

10. Certainly seems like tornadoes are more and earlier.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/torn/monthlytornstats.html

(some may want to screen capture this -- it seems to be 'edited' from time to time)

[BadgerKid]

11. Graph as of June 18

[riverdeep]

14. The unprecedented flooding is due to a confluence of factors.

Part of it is the crazy storms, but the other part is what people did to the ground. All the wetland, natural grasses that used to absorb and divert the water, is gone. Replaced with monoculture. The soil quality has eroded. Too much pavement and not enough trees.