Global Boiling: Unprecedented Flooding Of Red River Leaves Fargo ‘On The Brink Of Disaster’
Global Boiling: Unprecedented Flooding Of Red River Leaves Fargo ‘On The Brink Of Disaster’
Friday afternoon, the Red River of the North reached unprecedented flood levels in Fargo, North Dakota, twenty-four hours before it is expected to crest. Last night, President Obama added “seven northwest Minnesota counties” to the federal emergency already declared in North Dakota as “Fargo and Moorhead teeter on the brink of disaster” from this “historic flood.” The Red River has been in flood in Fargo since last Saturday. The United States Geological Survey river gage at Fargo — which has continuous flow data since 1902 — recorded new records in both streamflow (28,900 cubic feet per second) and height (40 3/4 feet) at 4:15 PM EST. Enough water is flowing through the Red River right now to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every three seconds, 48 times the normal rate:
FLOOD HEIGHT: 40.73 ft
This is the eighth “ten-year flood” of Fargo since 1989, with streamflow greater than 10,300 cfs. That is to say:
In the last twenty years, Red River floods expected to occur at Fargo only once every ten years have happened every two to three years. 2009 is the third year in a row with at least a “ten-year flood.” In the 90 years before 1990, there were only eight ten-year floods.
The standard for a hundred-year flood of the Red River of the North at Fargo set by the Army Corps of Engineers in 2001 is 29,300 cfs, a discharge rate never yet recorded.
A key consequence of global warming predicted by climate scientists is an increase in overall precipitation as well as extreme precipitation events, leading to increased flooding. As President Obama warned on Monday:
If you look at the flooding that’s going on right now in North Dakota, and you say to yourself, “If you see an increase of 2 degrees, what does that do, in terms of the situation there,” that indicates the degree to which we have to take this seriously.
9 Responses to “Global Boiling: Unprecedented Flooding Of Red River Leaves Fargo ‘On The Brink Of Disaster’”
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In this particular case, how much it has to do with climate change is, in my seat-of-the-pants opinion, limited.
I do believe that climate change will impact water significantly worldwide, but I thing agricultural and urban land use changes in the past couple decades have much more to do with the specific Fargo/Red River flooding situation.
Climate change may be the 10% extra that makes this situation so danged bad this time for Fargo-Moorhead, but the decimation of pot-hole topography, intensive tillage, recent removal of riparian areas for more ethanol fuel source, etc, are all locally contributing factors.
So, it’s a man made disaster, no doubt. But which one? I was TO’ed when our otherwise fairly good MN Public radio host called it a natural disaster on Wednesday’s mid-morning chat show. Its at least as man-made a disaster as Katrina.
’nuff said.
March 28th, 2009 at 12:54 amThe climatescience.gov assessments are all completed just this year. A good one is this four page summary brochure of product 3.3 which is packed with pertinent charts and graphs for this topic.
March 28th, 2009 at 12:57 amIt peaked around 40.82 feet, about 23 feet over flood stage, at just over 29,100 ft^3/s — almost exactly a “100 year” flood.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/climate_challenge/index_1.shtml is also good.
March 28th, 2009 at 5:18 amSnowman: I discussed this with a USGS hydrologist and he believed that this flooding was due primarily to climatic conditions — primarily unusually heavy precipitation in the watershed (both as snow over the winter, then as rain). Of course, he may be discounting the ground effects you discussed.
Red River flows have been predicted to increase by fifty percent.
This event is arguably within the realm of natural climatic variability, but it’s kind of a moot point — the climate is no longer natural. This is the Anthropocene. We have reshaped the land, the soil, the climate.
March 28th, 2009 at 9:27 amFor an example of what an actuarial correction might look like, see the map on page 16 showing the Google campus going under.
March 28th, 2009 at 7:51 pmLike jps says a “100 year flood”. Does that mean anything?
No, it does not mean that the next will come in 100 years.
Think so more.
Do your remember the floods in Bangladesh that killed a great number? Do you remember the big storm, as big as Katrina, and the year it happened? Was it before you were born? Does that mean anything to you?
Hint: 1.5 Billion people in Central Asia depend on glaciers for summer crops. The Himalaya glaciers are rapidly shriking, do you know of any agency or nation that is planning to rush help at the last minute? Not Russia, China or the U.S. We are all on “wait and see” mode.
The Aral Sea (really a lake) was the second largest in the world but lost two-thirds of its water and nearby farms became dust bowls, like we had in the 1930s “Dust Bowl”.
Glaciers in Glacier National Park will be all gone soon.
Final point. Even Global Warmies do not realize that every CO2 molecule in the air will stay there forever, FOREVER.
Together they trap the earth heat (radiation heat) and keep it from going into space. It is like a blanket but for radiative heat, not conductive heat.
Think of this, how many blankets will make Las Vegax too hot?
In 2007, the summer peak temparature reached 127 deg. F.
I can imagine your thinking: “But, it was cooler the next year, right?” and, of course, you would be right.
When do you think the highest temperature in Las Vegas will reach 135 deg F.? How much additional energy will be used to keep people cool and alive, in Las Vegas. How many more tons of Carbon Emissions will be going to the air, each year?
Yes, I am familiar of many cases where CO2 concentrations were much higher, long ago. The explanation is quite simple.
March 28th, 2009 at 10:20 pmThe thing that makes me so mad is there is no mention, no hint or suggestion, that this is related in anyway to climate change from the main stream media. No discussion, nothing.
I watch the Weather Channel often when I get up just to see what my day is going to be like. Most of the reporting on that channel is being spent on the ‘weather’ causing the flooding along the Red River, or the 5″ of rain Mobile, Alabama has had – yet NOT ONE MENTION of climate change.
You’d think that should be their primary mission, but it’s nothing but appealing to base emotions with pure voyeurism.
March 29th, 2009 at 6:02 pmA “ten year” flood isn’t expected to occur once every ten years. That is a misnomer (as is the “one hundred year” flood).
In the case of the Red River, the defining minimum flow rate for each is 10,300 cfs (”ten year”) and 29,300 cfs (”one hundred year”). A “ten year” flood of that level has a 10% (1/10) chance of occurring per year. There’s about a 65% chance of one occurring per decade. Same deal with the “one hundred year” floods but the numbers are 1% yearly with about a 63.4% chance of happening per century.
Taking the names of the floods at face value assumes that there is a 100% chance of such floods happening during said time period, which isn’t true. And makes the Red River flood data look even worse.
March 30th, 2009 at 9:17 pmI should clarify that I meant that the real probabilities (65% and 63.4%) make the data look even worse. Not that assuming the 100% would.
March 30th, 2009 at 9:21 pm