John Farley
Supporter
Saw this from the Washington Post this morning:
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While Stormtrack has discontinued its hosting of SpotterNetwork support on the forums, keep in mind that support for SpotterNetwork issues is available by emailing [email protected].
NOAA was developing a way to predict extreme rainfall — until Trump officials stopped it
- Thread starter John Farley
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JamesCaruso
Staff member
This is paywalled. I thought WP allows a certain number of free articles per month? I don’t recall reading anything from WP for a while, but I still couldn’t access.
gdlewen
EF4
I haven't looked at WaPo in, like forever, so I was able to look at it. Here are the first 5 "paragraphs" of the text:
"The Commerce Department has indefinitely suspended work on a tool to help communities predict how rising global temperatures will alter the frequency of extreme rainfall, according to three current and former federal officials familiar with the decision, a move that experts said will make the country more vulnerable to storms supercharged by climate change.
The tool is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Atlas 15 project — a massive dataset that will show how often storms of a given duration and intensity could be expected to occur at locations across the United States. The project was intended to be published in two volumes: one that would assess communities’ current risks and a second that would project how those risks will change under future climate scenarios.
The release of Atlas 15 had been long awaited by civil engineers, regional planners and other groups that use NOAA’s precipitation frequency estimates to develop regulations and design infrastructure. Many parts of the country rely on decades-old data to determine their rainfall risks, and there is no authoritative national dataset of how rainfall and flood threats will rise in a warmer world.
But work on Atlas 15’s climate projections has been on hold for months after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick ordered a review of Volume 2 this spring, according to current and former NOAA officials with knowledge of the project."
I can send a PDF of the web-page upon request but hesitate to post it in ST since I am not familiar with the Washington Post's Terms of Use, and so do not know if posting the article in its entirety would violate those. (However, since the PDF export picked up all of the ads featured on the page it seems to me that the advertisers would not mind easy access to their ads. But, it's a crazy world....)
Mike Smith
EF5
I think it is worth pointing out that (normalized) flood damage in the United States is on a fairly steep downward curve.
Roger Pielke, Jr. has a really interesting piece on heavy rain versus flooding here: Precipitation Paradox?
There is a lot more to determining flood potential than the clausius-clapeyron equation.
Roger Pielke, Jr. has a really interesting piece on heavy rain versus flooding here: Precipitation Paradox?
There is a lot more to determining flood potential than the clausius-clapeyron equation.
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William Monfredo
EF4
WeatherBell Analytics's reporting a rather large -0.6 degree C drop in global temperature this year.
Oh geez, I almost forget! Nobody, including me, runs their life based upon a global average.
Mike Smith
EF5
My hypothesis is that huge amount of water vapor from the Tonga Volcano is finally working its way out of the stratosphere, thus the cooling.
William Monfredo
EF4
While I was thinking about the fact that risk analysis is not weather prediction...
I'm also reminded that climate is not increased air-flow mixed with gasoline thrown into weather to make it explode.
The quoted phrase seems not only embarrassing for journalists who use it, but...impossible by the definitions of weather and climate.
John Farley
Supporter
Well, whatever the reason, let's hope it stands up by the end of the year and continues. That would be good news! But even with the drop thus far in the year, temperatures are well above recent decades on average.
John Farley
Supporter
I just read the "Precipitation Paradox?" article that Mike linked. Thanks for sharing that, Mike. I have a few thoughts after reading it:
1. The article at the end states: "The tragedy in Texas last week should not have happened. Nor should its exploitation by those seeking to advance a political agenda focused on climate change." My response is could we PLEASE, once and for all, just admit the obvious truth that there are political agendas on the part of BOTH climate change proponents and climate change skeptics? It is not simply one or the other, as both sides like to claim about the other.
2. It also states: "Some have even gone so far to suggest cynically that energy policy can be used as a control knob to limit or even prevent flooding. It can not." I agree that NOTHING is going to prevent flooding. There are no doubt some policy changes that can reduce flooding, but no change will ever totally prevent it, and it is naive to think that anything we do can accomplish that.
3. The article effectively acknowledges that extreme rainfall events are increasing, but that there is not evidence that flooding is increasing. However, it does note that there are a number of other factors besides the amount of rain that affect the likelihood of flooding, which I agree is true. At the same time, I am not sure it makes a convincing case that ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, more extreme rainfall does not contribute to more intense flooding, because the point it makes is that all else is not equal.
4. To me, it still makes sense to try make changes in our behavior that contribute less to climate extremes. Despite all the other arguments about climate change, it seems pretty clear in climate research that in a warmer climate, there are greater swings between extremes of high precipitation and little or no precipitation. And I do not see how such greater extremes can lead to much that is good for us.
5. Finally, and getting back to the point of why I posted the link I posted originally, it makes no sense to cut off a nearly-finished research project that would be useful whether there is climate change or not, i.e. collecting data on extreme rainfall events and floods that could make us better able to understand and predict these events. That was more my original point than anything about climate change, even though climate change was admittedly part of the motivation for the project. But if the project is yielding useful data, why scuttle it after most of the money has already been spent? That won't save money and will only result in loss of data.
1. The article at the end states: "The tragedy in Texas last week should not have happened. Nor should its exploitation by those seeking to advance a political agenda focused on climate change." My response is could we PLEASE, once and for all, just admit the obvious truth that there are political agendas on the part of BOTH climate change proponents and climate change skeptics? It is not simply one or the other, as both sides like to claim about the other.
2. It also states: "Some have even gone so far to suggest cynically that energy policy can be used as a control knob to limit or even prevent flooding. It can not." I agree that NOTHING is going to prevent flooding. There are no doubt some policy changes that can reduce flooding, but no change will ever totally prevent it, and it is naive to think that anything we do can accomplish that.
3. The article effectively acknowledges that extreme rainfall events are increasing, but that there is not evidence that flooding is increasing. However, it does note that there are a number of other factors besides the amount of rain that affect the likelihood of flooding, which I agree is true. At the same time, I am not sure it makes a convincing case that ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, more extreme rainfall does not contribute to more intense flooding, because the point it makes is that all else is not equal.
4. To me, it still makes sense to try make changes in our behavior that contribute less to climate extremes. Despite all the other arguments about climate change, it seems pretty clear in climate research that in a warmer climate, there are greater swings between extremes of high precipitation and little or no precipitation. And I do not see how such greater extremes can lead to much that is good for us.
5. Finally, and getting back to the point of why I posted the link I posted originally, it makes no sense to cut off a nearly-finished research project that would be useful whether there is climate change or not, i.e. collecting data on extreme rainfall events and floods that could make us better able to understand and predict these events. That was more my original point than anything about climate change, even though climate change was admittedly part of the motivation for the project. But if the project is yielding useful data, why scuttle it after most of the money has already been spent? That won't save money and will only result in loss of data.
Mike Smith
EF5
Agree with everything you wrote except this. Please read this: When the Climate Was Perfect
And, then consider that the worst (in terms of intensity) hurricane, tornado, drought, heat wave and flood in U.S. history all occurred between 1925 and 1940. When you combine those with the examples Roger cites, I do not think today's climate is particularly "extreme." It is clearly warmer than it used to be in winter but is that a bad thing?
John Farley
Supporter
Since I am a skier, I will give you a definitive YES on that!
Boris Konon
EF4
The Hunga-Tonga WV ejection in Jan 2022 was a watershed event. Nothing like this eruption has occurred in modern times, and has provided an excellent opportunity to examine how the most significant GHG (ever notice WV is ignored in this context by the MSM?) in the atmosphere put into the normally very dry stratosphere has an impact on global climate. There is still a lot of WV in the stratosphere after 3.5 years, and it will likely take until the end of decade for it to all fall out. See attachment.
But I see this event summarily dismissed by some that it did not impact the global climate significantly and its effects are done. What a narrow-minded and intellectually vapid way to look at something that clearly is very significant and begs a lot of study, since the opportunity to learn so many things is high w/ some not even realized yet until we see the full impacts of this event. Large volcano eruptions we know for a fact have impacts on short-term global climate, usually 1-3 yr when SO2 is involved. The Hunga-Tonga event though was largely WV, and WV sticks around a lot longer in the stratosphere compared to SO2, so we are likely looking at an extended short-term event as to impacts to global climate.
I think this event has been dismissed b/c it may partially to completely explain the spike in global temps starting about 2 years ago (there was a lag in global effects), and recently temps are dropping, and what Mike says is an interesting concept. But heaven forbid any global warming, temp spike, or anomaly these days is not 100% human caused.
And you have the normal global oscillations still going on (there are over a dozen we know of), so how do their phases and intensity interact w/ this excess stratospheric WV? Again, a wonderful opportunity nature has provided us to help us understand the Earth's system better, but agenda and ideology get in the way.
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Boris Konon
EF4
Yes, a lot more.
First, a record rainfall does not always mean record flooding, and record flooding is not always a result of record rainfall.
Second, there is a lot more to flash flooding than total rainfall. One is antedecent condtions (wet or dry), and another, and what matters most, is rainfall rate.
I hear a lot about how X more percent total rainfall fell from Y event b/c of global warming. But I do not hear much or anything about rainfall rates.
Rainfall rate is dependent on a number of factors, one is topography (a constant that has nothing do changes in global climate). Another is rainfall processes. Warm rainfall processes are the most efficient. This refers to rain derived from non ice-phase processes in clouds. This is done primarily by collision-coalescence of water droplets of different sizes as they fall at different terminal velocities within the clouds.
It is said in a warmer globe, CAPE will increase, and linear thinking would say, "that means more intense rainfall." But it does not work this way. Too much CAPE is actually not good for warm rain processes b/c lofts raindrops easier above the freezing level, and this would reduce rainfall rates. Modest CAPE 500-1000 often is a good balance. Having no CAPE reduces rainfall rates and too much CAPE does that same. So it more about balance than just extremes in either direction, something that seems to evade some when talking about wx processes in general and future changes. In other words, the details count!
For heavy rainfall, you also need mechanism to condense all that rain out of the atmosphere. All the high PWATs in the world are meaningless if you do not have a mechanism to wring it out. One thing found in a warmer globe, the overall overturning circulation becomes weaker due to less temp contrast from the Poles to the Equator. So despite increase in atmospheric WV, there is a counter here as to weaker forcing in the atmosphere. Does it balance out 1-1? Probably not, but we are treating these two factors in a vacuum here. What other things (feedbacks) come into play? The point being it is not so simple as some tend to portray when it comes to warmer global temps.
And attribution studies concerning individual big wx events, I have already seen claims from a study done within 3 days (where is peer review?) of the TX flood event stating this:
"Comparing present regional conditions (1987–2023) to the past (1950–1986),
their analysis concluded that meteorological conditions leading to the July
2025 floods in Texas were up to 7% wetter compared to similar past events;
Natural variability alone cannot explain the changes in precipitation
associated with this very exceptional meteorological condition."
A couple of issues here. First, the period of record used starts at 1950. Why? Do we not have records going back further than that? Of course we do (take a look at some of the remarkable events w/ much higher for rainfall totals in interior TX prior to 1950 - links attached). So I find this start year suspect b/c going back further may reveal results that do not support the current narrative on increasing rainfall everywhere due to warming temps. Cherry-picking logical fallacy here. Even if we did not have records prior to 1950, 73 years is much too short a period to determine true long-term trends. 73 years is long by human standards, but not by climate standards, something that seems to bias our perceptions of changes/trends in wx/climate.
Second, the 7% wetter. The max rainfall for the overnight Guadalupe River basin flash flood event was about 10". Yes, just over 20" max was reported for the entire event in central TX, but don't forget this was an 2-day event. There was a second event the following overnight in this area w/ the max rainfall ~50 mi NE of the Guadalupe River basin area. So going by 7% wetter, 7% of 10" is .70". (there are no further details on what 7% means, so I am going by the most likely way it is portrayed - simple for the public). So w/o warming, the rainfall would have been 9.3". That amount would have made *zero* difference. Major flash flooding would have occurred regardless w/ the same end results. The river may have crested 1-2 ft lower, but well before that, all the damage would be done. This is akin to making a big deal about seal level been 1” higher than 50 years ago at a location the Gulf Coast, and a major hurricane hits w/ a 15' storm surge. So its now 15' 1" above the mean water level than before. Again, zero difference. All the damage is done before the surge maxes at its peak (wave battery on top of that surge does a lot).
Inland TX biggest rainfall events prior to 1950
June 1913:
Sep 1921
Sep 1936
Wasn't able to read the article due to the paywall, but it's worth mentioning that my current work with NOAA and CU/CIRES is partially funded by a program called Probable Maximum Precipitation (Probable Maximum Precipitation Modernization : NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory). I don't know if this is the program discussed in the article, although I have been told nothing about cuts to this project myself, so I can't comment.
I will say, however, that non-climate research scientists like me are working on research on better characterizing precipitation extremes across the US. I myself have built a model climatology from various CAMs to document how much precip some models are capable of producing. Nothing formal from the work yet, but perhaps in the next year or so.
I will say, however, that non-climate research scientists like me are working on research on better characterizing precipitation extremes across the US. I myself have built a model climatology from various CAMs to document how much precip some models are capable of producing. Nothing formal from the work yet, but perhaps in the next year or so.
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