David Robinson

The retirement of David Robinson is a huge loss for Rutgers and NJ, but I am happy for him nonetheless. 

New Climate site

Much of the data and information from Climate.gov has now migrated to Climate.us including the resilience toolkit and the maps.

This week, the map of interest might be the map hottest days in history. Note: New Brunswick hit 105.1 in 2010.

Another $65,000 in the fight against climate change?

 Is this our best response to increased flooding in a changing climate? New gates to close the roads? 

Losing value

Today's Wall Street Journal reports that climate change is going to hammer home values and dramatically increase the cost of home insurance. Explaining the data from a report by First Street, the WSJ explains that we should anticipate a $1.75 trillion reduction in value by 2055.  And they even tell us where to watch:

First Street projects the hardest-hit places will have rising home-insurance costs and population declines. The counties with the biggest projected population loss over the next 30 years are Fresno County, Calif.; Ocean County, N.J.; and Monmouth County, N.J. 

Sould you trust their data? The article mentions that First Street is providing climate change data to Zillow which accompanies each house on the website. Here is a house that is 10/10 high risk in three categories.

Polar warming

 This seems like it could be important to figure out:

Study: Polar warming may be underestimated by climate models, ~50 million year old climate variability suggests

Greenhouse Effect

This recent comic from XKCD was not so funny.

 

New rule!

 New Jersey has a new Inland Flood Rule that is the first in the US to account for changes in precipitation due to climate change. The recent extreme weather suggests that this cutting edge, first of its kind change may already have been overdue. 

Climate migration

 This Vox piece, Why we still don’t yet know how bad climate migration will get, helps explain some climate migration uncertainty without seeming mysterious. Primarily a response to the latest IPCC report, the article helps explain different ways that climate change could force migration. Included in this is the simple appreciation for how difficult it is for many people, directly in harms way, to move. 

Climate talk

Diane McKnight

Title:  Trouble Ahead Trouble Behind: Acid Mine Drainage & Climate Change in the Rocky Mountains

Diane M. McKnight is a Professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, a member of the Environmental Engineering program faculty and a Fellow of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado. Her research focuses on the coupling of hydrology and water quality in streams and lakes, and the consequences for aquatic ecosystems and water supplies.

March 4th, 2020

Poster Session 3-4:30pm; Weeks Hall of Engineering, 2nd Floor Atrium

Lecture 5pm 102 Weeks Hall of Engineering

Registration:  https://tinyurl.com/yzms78hh

IPCC report

The IPCC has issued a new report on the role of land use in climate change. Every major news outlet will have their own summary or analysis (The Atlantic, Ars Technica, WSJ). But a good place to watch a conversation about it will be Real Climate. Some of the commenters will have been at the meeting or will already be reading the report.


Is land use part of the problem or part of the solution?

Turn up the heat and see what you get

When we were kids we learned to write invisibly with lemon juice and then later we could reveal the secret message by holding it close to a flame. The heat revealed what had been previously hidden.

This summer's British heat wave is doing the same thing. The heat is revealing long lost patterns beneath the surface. Sam Knight digs a little deeper in this New Yorker piece on the visible archaeology. 

Puerto Rican forest damage map

The NY Times took a fascinating look at research in PR that is investigating the nature and extent of Hurricane Maria's damage to the island's forests. The article includes an amazing map from Columbia U that shows where the damage occurred. In the east is cluster of high damage in El Yunque National Forest. But there is widespread damage all over. The research estimates that as many as 31 million trees were destroyed or severely damaged.

There is more than just the great map. The article goes into detail about how the researchers are ground truthing Landsat imagery to better understand their data. And they begin to speculate on what long-term changes might look like in that forest.

Island recovery

The coverage of hurricane damage to the islands is still slowly leaking out.

While Puerto Rico's crisis is clearly the largest, Rutgers has developed a relationship with St Croix over the last several years, so is has been particularly tough watching the stories from that island.

Local news has been very hit and miss. The St Croix Source is understandably more focused on recovery (the virtue of the week was gentleness). The VI Daily News has included some interesting updates.  A station in Tampa posted a few photos.

The New York Times has a compelling set of images and stories from the American Virgin Islands that are heartbreaking. They go inside the main hospital on St Thomas and report that it will most likely have to be torn down and rebuilt.

"Reinforcing the sense of despair, St. Croix was hit especially hard by Maria after being spared the worst of Irma’s ferocity. And what had been a staging ground there for relief operations for St. Thomas and St. John was suddenly thrown into a state of emergency."

BTW, over the last month there have been so many different NPS parks and parkland impacted, that they keep their news on a separate website: https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/news/severe-weather-response.htm  The news ranges from Kitty Hawk to De Soto to Buck Island. Although for several properties, the current status is little more than "All employees have been accounted for."

A moderate storm?

The Nor'Easter this week was pretty nasty but, as far as I can tell, not a hurricane and not a big killer. Because of that it is worth keeping an eye on the impact as a baseline for other events.

• Video/photos of the tiki bar underwater got retweeted a lot.
• The beach erosion is pretty stunning if you haven't seen it before.
• The water in the streets of places like Ocean City seems like more than just a minor problem.
• The thousands of people without power hope that the power returns before their 5 gallons of ice cream melts.
• A viral video of some very wet streets in LBI near Ship Bottom

So what are they problems here? Is this the new normal and we should plan on a few disruptions a year? Is this simply the cost of living close to the sea?  Is this a harbinger of things to come? (Robert Kopp says SLR could 8' by 2100) Is it just a problem when people die?

We'll talk about it in class on Thursday.


UPDATE:

Ortley Beach NJ January 2017 after the storm @JSHurricaneNews @News12 pic.twitter.com/d8zzAZTSgt

— David Lospinoso (@david_lospinoso) January 25, 2017

Alligators moving North

Did you know that North Carolina has a growing alligator population? The North Carolina Gap Analysis Project can show you where.

Slate says Virginia could be next.

Sea level rise and property values

While the news story is several months old, I was struck when I read this story from Key Largo. It details how the streets of Key Largo are flooding with increasing frequency. The article includes a picture of a flooded street on what appears to be an otherwise nice day - just a high tide with a super moon will do it. But the interesting twist was this quote:

"So far we have not been seeing buyers being concerned with sea level rise, which I'm a little surprised given all the media attention it has garnered lately," said Lisa Ferringo, president of the Marathon/Lower Keys Board of Realtors.

When will shore towns see that change? How much flooding is a meaningful inconvenience? Is this a bubble about to burst or a new standard of social resilience. Seems like there should be some sociologists building predictive models on this.

Resilience strategies

This weekend there will be stories about coastal flooding. But The Nature Conservancy reports on three NJ towns that are fighting storms with eologically-powered solutions. How many towns on the shore would have saved money this weekend with more marshes and dunes?

Shore flooding

You heard lots about Hurricane Joaquin, but did you realize that the Jersey Shore had flooding today? Down in Ocean County, some streets were filling with water.  Down in Cape May the coastal areas had some high water too.

Hurricane Joaquin

With Hurricane Joaquin targeting the Chesapeake and Washington DC, I highly recommend keeping an eye on a blog that I have long enjoyed, the Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang. They often have a nice mix of forecasts (raw material and general public info) and science that makes it worth the trip, even if they are a few hours away.

Melting roads

Is our infrastructure ready for a serious heat wave? Melting roads doesn't seem like something that many communities plan for initially. But this looks like a real issue. India isn't the only place.