tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5337555368793819627.post850238823533896152..comments2023-06-07T09:04:36.390-04:00Comments on More Grumbine Science: Adapted to the weather?Robert Grumbinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10783453972811796911noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5337555368793819627.post-34725059194246554372012-07-11T03:48:20.020-04:002012-07-11T03:48:20.020-04:00Subscribing to comments...Subscribing to comments...Dolhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17110810881843699172noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5337555368793819627.post-76191561061151325492012-07-11T03:47:30.905-04:002012-07-11T03:47:30.905-04:00Guardian article from today: UK government also cu...<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/11/flood-protection-cost-climate-change?intcmp=122" rel="nofollow">Guardian article from today</a>: UK government also cutting back on flood defence budgets.<br /><br />It's a grubby irony: people most vocally arguing "we can adapt / the costs of adaptation won't be as onerous as the costs of mitigation" are pretty much always anti-state-spending. Who do they think is going to carry out this adaptation? Presumably when they say, "we'll adapt," they mean "those of us who can afford it will retreat to the best positions and adapt there, everyone else can go screw themselves." (Not that there are going to be any safe places to retreat to if we manage to tip the earth into a whole new climate regime...)Dolhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17110810881843699172noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5337555368793819627.post-18387776352654522612012-07-05T07:55:42.816-04:002012-07-05T07:55:42.816-04:00I might be a tad unfair, but not more than that. ...I might be a tad unfair, but not more than that. In the large scale, yes, the system was extraordinary. Having winds in excess of 50 mph across a line a few hundred km long is unusual, at least coming from the west, as this did. Winds of that speed and scale are not so unusual coming from the east -- by way of hurricanes. Rather, for my time in the area, for tropical storms, most recently, Irene. That's been two that did landfall and one that was forecast to but missed us. 3 in 20 years -- again, not terribly unusual events (or near misses).<br /><br />The repair resources 'needed' are coming from many states, true. But why did the power go out in the first place? Especially, why did it go out in so many homes at once? The power companies in the DC area experienced local weather, not the few hundred km (several hundred thousand square km). The local (to DC area) power systems experienced, for the most part, weather they can expect on an annual basis in their few hundred to couple thousand square miles (several thousand square km). The 1.5 million who lost power in the Washington, DC area were divided between at least 4 different power companies. Winds of 50 mph through entire counties are not at all unusual, even if winds from the same storm from south of Washington DC to north of Philadelphia of that scale are. Yet each county lost power to about half its population from these entirely expectable local winds.<br /><br />The 'need' for assistance is a different matter. If you've slashed your maintenance budget and crews for years, as one of the more notorious companies in this area (located in one of the wealthiest counties in the area), then of course you 'need' a lot of help. When, not if, you suffer a large outage (this is at least the 3rd outage since the start of 2010 of over 400,000 customers for that company, lasting for some up to at least a week in each) you of course can't deal with it and need help from far away. Lots of it. But this is not a matter of exceptional weather. It is a matter of having cut your repair and maintenance staff so far for so long that, as a lineman for that company I know was saying last year, they can barely keep up with the maintenance even when there's no weather at all.<br /><br />That's what makes talk of climate adaptation piffle. By managerial intent, both in corporations and by way of our political decisions, we are now unable to manage locally ordinary weather. If you can't/won't cope with what are already annual events, you can't/won't cope with things that were 30 year events but become 10 year events in a changed climate.Robert Grumbinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10783453972811796911noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5337555368793819627.post-26437797935005569572012-07-04T18:19:06.095-04:002012-07-04T18:19:06.095-04:00I think you are being a tad unfair here. The condi...I think you are being a tad unfair here. The conditions that hit DC were extraordinary but not unprecedented. What is unprecedented is the width of the region around DC that experienced comparable conditions. This means that the repair resources that normally could be concentrated on a local area are now dispersed around an area of several states.<br /><br />The event was meteorologically bizarre. Even modest derechos are rare east of the Allegheny range. There is no clear precedent I have heard of for a disruption of this scale in an area as densely populated as the Northern Virginia- DC-Baltimore-Philadelphia area.<br /><br />The good news is that this was not really “ordinary extraordinary” weather. That’s the bad news, too.Michael Tobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5337555368793819627.post-19968517799352064872012-07-04T10:26:47.922-04:002012-07-04T10:26:47.922-04:00turboblocke:
I think that there are few painless,...turboblocke: <br />I think that there are few painless, cheap options. What we can do is think seriously about options, whether on prevention, mitigation, or adaptation and go for what looks least bad. Some of them, particularly on the prevention or mitigation side, actually have benefits. But the ostrich approach just isn't going to do well for any ordinary person. People with multiple homes, in widely separated parts of the country (or planet) are ok. The rest of us have real effects from a power grid that can't deal with normal winds, and so forth.<br /><br />John:<br />VA is ignoring present weather events. The sea level changes are already happening. For fear of some 'one world' conspiracy or other, a district has voted to ignore the sea level changes they <i>already</i> have experienced since 1950. They decided to ignore sea level change entirely. NC at least was allowing as how sea level does change. They just decided to ignore the science on the subject in favor of looking only to the past.<br /><br />After 9/11, there was much talk about decentralizing the government, so that fewer things would be in one place to be affected by a single attack. In the decade since, more has moved towards the DC metro area. Irrespective of power outages, that was the wrong move. The crumbling infrastructure, though, makes it even worse an idea.<br /><br />The National Weather Service took one step forward and one step backward in this vein. For the past decade or more, there have been two computer systems for processing weather data and running the weather models. One in Gaithersburg, MD, and one in Fairmont, WV. The computer systems did survive the outages -- not least because they have their own fairly major generators on site. But the areas both were in were hit by the same storm only hours apart. The next systems will be in Reston, VA (hit by this storm) and Orlando, FL (not hit by this one). I'm not sure putting one in a major hurricane zone is that great an idea. Then again, the National Hurricane Center is in Miami, FL, an even better target for hurricanes. Still, it is unlikely that the same storm would hit both Orlando and Reston.Robert Grumbinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10783453972811796911noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5337555368793819627.post-60630079129539170902012-07-04T02:53:56.194-04:002012-07-04T02:53:56.194-04:00It might be a good idea to halt any Federal govern...It might be a good idea to halt any Federal government expansion in the area and distribute it to safer places around the country, especially to states that actually take climate change seriously, unlike VA.John Masheynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5337555368793819627.post-3243531104585484492012-07-03T17:21:11.765-04:002012-07-03T17:21:11.765-04:00You make a good point. Adaption is not going to be...You make a good point. Adaption is not going to be a painless, cheap option.Turboblockenoreply@blogger.com