
More microbursts are coming - shawndumas
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-29/forget-tornadoes-rain-bombs-are-coming-for-your-town
======
taliesinb
Reminds me of this essay I read yesterday, which painted a pretty startling
picture of how insane things could get:

[http://www.flassbeck-economics.com/how-climate-change-is-
rap...](http://www.flassbeck-economics.com/how-climate-change-is-rapidly-
taking-the-planet-apart/)

Here's a snippet showing how rapidly predictions are escalating:

* Late 2007: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announces that the planet will see a one degree Celsius temperature increase due to climate change by 2100.

* Late 2008: The Hadley Centre for Meteorological Research predicts a 2C increase by 2100.

* Mid-2009: The U.N. Environment Programme predicts a 3.5C increase by 2100. Such an increase would remove habitat for human beings on this planet, as nearly all the plankton in the oceans would be destroyed, and associated temperature swings would kill off many land plants. Humans have never lived on a planet at 3.5C above baseline.

* October 2009: The Hadley Centre for Meteorological Research releases an updated prediction, suggesting a 4C temperature increase by 2060.

* November 2009: The Global Carbon Project, which monitors the global carbon cycle, and the Copenhagen Diagnosis, a climate science report, predict 6C and 7C temperature increases, respectively, by 2100.

* December 2010: The U.N. Environment Programme predicts up to a 5C increase by 2050.

* 2012: The conservative International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook report for that year states that we are on track to reach a 2C increase by 2017.

* November 2013: The International Energy Agency predicts a 3.5C increase by 2035.

~~~
AWildDHHAppears
America can reduce its carbon footprint by 5%, save 300,000 lives/year, and
save about $400 Billion dollars a year without spending a nickel.

If the 66% of the American population that's obese or overweight would just
stop overeating, all of the above could happen overnight.

~~~
d0mine
It is a red herring.

It reminds me how soda companies shift blame on their customers: "exercise
more, don't blame our sugar water". Actually, what and how much you eat/drink
is much more important than the exercise, to fight obesity.

Another (BS) example: "shower less to save water" \-- compare the agricultural
water consumption (giant) vs. the household needs (negligible by comparison).

If a corporation destroys the planet; its products should include the price
today (e.g., via a tax): the problem fixes itself.

~~~
AWildDHHAppears
Nobody ever said exercise more. (That may be bad advice for obese people too,
because it will make them hungrier and they may injure their already strained
joints). Plus, it won't help the environment. (That's the subject here!)

Just eat less!

~~~
d0mine
In case you are not playing stupid intentionally, my point: blame
corporations, not people: _tax corporations_ that contribute to the global
warming today (that may have a real effect even if it is almost impossible to
implement -- it should be easier with each more frequent natural disaster)
instead of suggesting _" eat less"_ to the whole population (that won't have
nearly the same effect and it is even more impossible to implement).

~~~
rbanffy
He actually has a point. While corporations have their share of
responsibility, so do individuals who choose the quick rewards of
sugar/sodium/fat.

Not that asking an addict to quit is really helpful...

------
jessaustin
As a farmer/rancher, I'm happy not to live in the "1930s" region of that
graph. I've never understood why people in North America complain about rain.
The land we have that is vulnerable to flooding is tiny in comparison to that
which is vulnerable to desertification.

~~~
hogu
Just curious, are you a father/rancher and a software dev? How did you come
across hn?

~~~
quirkot
Haven't you heard about the dust-up about DRM on tractors? Tech is everywhere,
even the unglamorous places

~~~
ianai
I'm of the opinion that the metropolis is the unglamorous place.

------
ryanmarsh
Flooding in Houston over the past 40 years has had more to do with development
and flood control projects than changes in rainfall.

I really hate when people try to use Houston as an example of the effects of
climate change, the behavior of economic clusters, or the effects of zoning.
Most of what I've read shows people really have no clue about how those things
actually work here.

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jcoffland
> roughly one in ten record-breaking events would not have occurred without
> climate change

So 90% of these record breaking events are normal. Then why all the hyperbole?
Oh right, saying "rain bomb" instead of "microburst" gets more clicks.

~~~
themartorana
Because we've moved the climate in one direction or another by 10% already,
and we've never polluted so heavily before. That's pretty significant.

That stat is also normalized over the past 30 years. Change is accelerating,
so it would be more than 10% over the past 10 years.

~~~
jcoffland
This does not equate to a 10% change in climate, whatever that even means.

> Change is accelerating...

What change specifically is accelerating? Your base assumption that things are
unquestionably getting worse is unscientific.

~~~
themartorana
I don't... what?

Anyway...

Since the new thing is to yell at any post that doesn't provide a link, here -
change is accelerating:
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/21/global-w...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/21/global-
warming-taking-place-at-an-alarming-rate-un-climate-body-warns)

But this isn't news. And it's all scientific.

~~~
jcoffland
[http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/october/nasa-study-finds-
eart...](http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/october/nasa-study-finds-earth-s-
ocean-abyss-has-not-warmed/#.V574F65Mvs3)

~~~
themartorana
Says the same thing as the article I linked.

"Global surface temperatures in 2015 shattered all previous records by a wide
margin, the report shows, sitting 0.76C above the 1961-90 average.
Temperatures over land, over the ocean and in the top 700 and 2,000 metres of
the ocean all set new records."

------
Animats
Here's what that looks like on the ground. Ellicott City, MD had a flash flood
last night. The Patapsco River rose 14 feet in an hour and a half. The area
has flooded before, but during hurricanes, for which there's more advance
warning.

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/severe-flash-flood-
stri...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/severe-flash-flood-strikes-
ellicott-city-overturning-cars-and-destroying-
businesses/2016/07/31/a8e50184-5720-11e6-831d-0324760ca856_story.html)

~~~
mrfusion
Was that considered a microburst?

~~~
Animats
Unclear. One site says yes.[1] This just happened last night, so accurate
analysis may be a few days away.

[1] [http://metroforensics.blogspot.com/2016/07/microbursts-
cause...](http://metroforensics.blogspot.com/2016/07/microbursts-cause-flash-
flooding-in-new.html)

------
cmarschner
I highly recommend the book "Collapse" by Jared Diamond on the matter. It is a
highly detailed account of what happened in the past when societies collapsed.
Most if the time they consumed more resources than what their environment
would provide. Many of them then failed, wars and genocides occured that
reduced the population to below sustainable levels, or people sinply starved.
Others managed to turn around and started to manage resources properly.
There's a talk by the author on Youtube that summarizes the book.
[https://youtu.be/wpkS1xym0HA](https://youtu.be/wpkS1xym0HA)

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kijin
American cities need to learn a thing or two from Tokyo. 10 inches of rain in
one day is a common occurrence in Japan during the summer, so they are
prepared to handle it.

~~~
maxerickson
Yeah, that's sort of the point. This kind of weather hasn't been happening, so
infrastructure hasn't been built to handle it.

For infrastructure that will last 50 years, it really doesn't make a lot of
sense to build it to withstand events that happen roughly every 500 years. Of
course things like nuclear plants and dams have to be built to withstand the
most severe events, but not every culvert on a country road.

~~~
tedunangst
The counter argument is that it's cheaper to do things once than twice. Laying
a one foot drainage pipe, then digging it up and replacing with three foot
pipe, is way more expensive than just laying three foot pipe to start. Too
many public works projects seem to be built right at the edge of confidence.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Doing things once is how you get suburban sprawl that everyone here loves to
hate. Drive around some parts of the south and you'll see that the space set
aside for infrastructure is only about 50% utilized. There's two and four lane
roads with one and two lane widths of grass shoulder between them and the
culverts and enough space for a culvert twice as wide before you have to move
the sidewalk.

I'm a big fan of leaving room for expansion but everything is a tradeoff to
some degree.

~~~
tedunangst
Is that really so terrible? A road with some grass along it?

------
zackya89
When last year was the hottest year on record, and this year is on track to be
the hottest year on record, globally that is a cause for concern.

------
ianai
Pretty sure Las Vegas would crumble if it ever got a macro burst. Many streets
flood with seemingly any rainfall here. When they do flood, large rocks and
debris wash onto the streets.

~~~
djKianoosh
Los Cabos in mexico rarely gets rain and they do get floods whenever they get
more than a couple inches of rain. at least thats what the locals told me last
time I visited

------
CydeWeys
The article questions "when the next one is coming", but it already came, last
night in Ellicott City, MD. The whole downtown was wiped out (in an economic
sense) by a flash flood caused by six inches of rain falling in three hours.

------
tigeba
I experienced what was eventually classified as a microburst and the effects
on the ground were largely indistinguishable from a tornado. I'm not sure the
article really made this clear, or if there are multiple, potentially
different definitions for the term. This is also an area that frequently
experiences tornado activity so we have ample experience with those events for
comparison. We had winds that were likely in excess of 125mph and there were
around 100+ houses damaged, 6-8 were completely destroyed and 30+ sustained
severe damage. Flooding was not an issue but we have unique geography that
makes that very unlikely.

------
cheald
Heh, the Phoenix picture is impressive but that's every July-September for us
- it's monsoon season. We get massive, violent storms that last a very short
time, dump a massive amount of water on the city, and then are clear skies
before you know what even happened.

If anything, it's been a particularly tame year this year. We've had a few
good storms, but we haven't even gotten close to our annual flash floods.

------
mark_l_watson
I live in the mountains in Central Arizona. A few summers ago we had a
microburst in our neighborhood. For 20 minutes it was like a wall of water
coming down. The house down hill from us got 3 feet of mud in the living room,
major property damage. It took us about 5 hours to repair our yard but no real
damage. Meanwhile, a friend living less that a mile away only had very light
rain.

------
jds375
The article makes the argument that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere, thus
a hotter atmosphere, thus the atmosphere can hold more water.

Does that at all explain the increasingly frequent droughts? Could it be due
to more water in the water cycle being stuck in the atmosphere instead of on
earth's surface?

~~~
x86_64Ubuntu
Weather is a dynamic system. Just because you have more water in the air
doesn't mean you have more water everywhere.

------
fncndhdhc
Bloomberg is trying to invent new, scarier sounding terminology, and honestly
it's quite silly. What they're referring to are microbursts.

~~~
jrockway
New Yorkers are wimps when it comes to anything weather. There's a small
thunderstorm? We call it a "doozie". Some snow in the forecast? We shut down
the entire regional transportation system.

I'm originally from Chicago so I find it all very amusing. I don't recall the
L ever shutting down, nor do I remember any news articles about thunderstorms
unless there were tornados inside the city limits.

~~~
ams6110
I've noticed this trend to be more and more alarmist about what used to be
normal weather.

For example, I've lived in the midwest USA most of my life. Every July and
August is hot and humid, with many days in the 90-degree (F) range. This used
to just be normal summer weather and unremarkable. Now, anything over 85
degrees is a "heat advisory" and over 90 people are advised to stay indoors
and avoid activity. They also publish absurd "feels like" temperature e.g.
"today's high 91, _feels like 117_." I'm sorry, in no real world does 91 "feel
like" 117.

~~~
justin66
> I'm sorry, in no real world does 91 "feel like" 117.

It does, and there's no voodoo needed to understand why. In a super-humid
environment your body's way of dealing with the heat - sweat - just isn't as
efficient. On a breezy day in the desert, 117 is... well, it's damn hot, but
if you're staying hydrated and take steps to keep from getting sunburned, it's
kind of surprising how tolerable it is. In that environment sweat works its
magic quickly and effectively.

(I live in the midwest and I'd trade fifteen or twenty degrees for the
humidity we get this time of year. My first visit to the Nevada desert was
kind of an eye-opener)

