Deadly floods are wreaking global havoc

 In Pakistan, where almost half a million people live in relief camps, the rain killed more than 1,000 people. Massive flooding swept through Mississippi last week, leaving about 150,000 residents of the capital, Jackson, without reliable access to safe drinking water. Rain recently lashed Seoul subway stations, turning streets into rivers in one of the worst storms in more than a century.

In recent weeks, the world has been hit by a series of deadly floods that have destroyed homes, flooded farmland, engulfed mining operations and caused economic damage. In Pakistan alone, officials estimated the damage at more than $10 billion, a level that forced the country to seek a $1.1 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to avert a looming crisis. The country is now facing a food crisis as agricultural land is under water. It rained in India, in the south of the United States and Great Britain.

Ironically, the floods occur at a time when planet Earth is also suffering from drought and declining rivers. Although it defies logic, atmospheric dynamics combined with large-scale heat waves and droughts make floods possible. This is not an unknown disturbance, but rather an accelerated effect of climate change.

"As the air and oceans warm under a thick layer of greenhouse gases, more water vapor evaporates into the air, providing more moisture for thunderstorms, hurricanes, nor'easters and monsoons," said Jennifer Francis, senior scientist at Woodwell Climate. Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts. "Rains and frequent floods are clear signs of the climate crisis," he said.

Drought and flood are related. This is because when moisture in the air is removed from one area, it is dumped elsewhere.

There is also a persistent La Niña, which contributes to floods and droughts around the world. This phenomenon, which occurs when the tropical Pacific Ocean cools, disrupts weather patterns around the world. It could bring heavy rains to Indonesia, flooding oil palm plantations, drying out the southern United States and California, and affecting cotton and grape crops. Climate change is the biggest driver. Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that rising temperatures on Earth mean that a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor. Every 1°C increases efficiency by about 7%. According to the US National Center for Environmental Information, the period from January to July 2022 marked the sixth warmest start to a calendar year worldwide in 143 years. "This ceiling increases the amount of extreme precipitation," Swain said.

"This same process reinforces the tendency of the atmosphere to act like a giant sponge and pull excess water from the Earth's surface," Swain said. "This is known less than the effects of heavy rainfall, but it is still very important: most of the soil drying on climate change, the impact of global warming on drought and the intensity of fire."

Get China Sichuan Province. A few weeks ago, the territory was in historical drought, which led to the disruption of electricity and business for companies, including Toyota Motor Corp. Now the most densely populated southwestern province of the country is flooded. More than 119,000 people were evacuated and authorities asked more than 300 mines, including 60 coal plants, to evacuate workers as a precaution. In places like Colorado, where the capital Denver just experienced daily rain, it did not change the deep impact of a prolonged drought in the American West. But it can be enough to cause flash floods, cancel flights and put homes, property and lives at risk. In New Mexico, about 200 people were stranded for several hours in a national park during recent rains.

Elsewhere, particularly parts of Australia, there are greater changes in flood patterns. At the beginning of 2022, continuous storms caused large-scale flooding in the southeastern part of the continent. With a three-month forecast, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology is predicting further flooding. The risk of flooding remains high in eastern Australia despite wet ground, high rivers and full dams and average spring rainfall, the bureau said in a statement.

In Pakistan, the extra moisture in the atmosphere intensified the annual monsoon. That, along with the rapid melting of glaciers in the region, "made the flooding worse," said Francis of the Woodwell Center for Climate Research.

"Add to that infrastructure and homes going into flood plains and you have a recipe for disaster, flooding," he said. Much of Pakistan's rice and vegetable crops were destroyed. Wheat planting, which begins in October, is under threat at a time when the world cannot afford another grain supply disruption. Even before the flood, there was a shortage of wheat in the land.

Of course, floods have affected civilization since its inception. Since 1980, 36 major floods in the United States have caused $173.7 billion in damage, according to the National Center for Environmental Information. But now the excesses became more frequent and stronger. "If we don't address the underlying disease -- the thick blanket of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels and deforestation -- these types of events will happen more often," Francis said. Floods "become stronger, last longer and generally affect areas that are immune to them."

 

Read more: https://www.bangordailynews.com/2022/09/03/news/world-news/deadly-global-floods/