Home About Chat Users Issues Party Candidates Polling Firms Media News Polls Calendar Key Races United States President Senate House Governors International

New User Account
"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource." 
Email: Password:

  Tennessee's Record Flooding a Sign of Things to Come
NEWS DETAILS
Parent(s) Issue 
Contributorparticleman 
Last Editedparticleman  May 12, 2010 12:04am
Logged 0
CategoryGeneral
AuthorLarry O'Hanlon
News DateTuesday, May 11, 2010 07:00:00 AM UTC0:0
DescriptionThe devastating rain and flooding that recently paralyzed Nashville is just the sort of extreme precipitation event that global warming is expected to make more common.

The same weather conditions that produce such events could indicate a rough hurricane season ahead.

Hydrologists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) were out in force during and after the Tennessee storm trying to gather whatever data they could from stream flow gauges that were sometimes underwater or even washed away by the deluges of May 1 and 2. "This was such an extreme event," said Rodney Knight, a surface water specialist with the USGS Tennessee Water Science Center. Knight lives in the Nashville area. "It was just surreal to see. We were driving boats in the tree canopies."

The flows surprised even the experts, Knight said. They were greater than any ever seen before, including the floods of 1975, 1927 and any other event since the records started being kept in the 1880s.

"The Tennessee storms are just the latest in a sequence (of severe weather events) this year that includes Washington, D.C., and New York," said climate researcher Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

All the extraordinarily wet snow and rain events match a pattern that has been predicted by climate modelers. That pattern is based on some pretty basic physics: For every one degree Fahrenheit that the atmosphere warms, the water-holding capacity for the atmosphere increases 4 percent, Trenberth explained. That means 4 percent more water vapor over the oceans.

This temperature/moisture content issue is of special concern for the remainder of 2010, said Trenberth. The air temperatures over the tropical and subtropical Atlantic Ocean are currently reaching all-time highs. "This is something that we're looking at as we come into the hurricane season," said Trenberth. It's no guarantee of a harsh hurricane season ahead, but it's one powerful ingredient.
Share
ArticleRead Full Article

NEWS
Date Category Headline Article Contributor

DISCUSSION