Terms: floods
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• Science > Earth Sciences > Floods

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1. -06-20-08 Midwest Floods Create Economic Catastrophe (MSNBC News)
   "Long after the waters subside, the floods that submerged the Midwest this month could turn out to be the region’s biggest economic disaster in decades, with ramifications that will be felt by consumers across the country."
   
   "With levees still under pressure and more flooding expected, no one is ready to put an estimate on the final damage, but it will likely swamp the $21 billion in losses tallied by the Great Flood of 1993." 06-08

2. -06-26-08 Army Corps of Engineers Causing Floods? (Time.com)
   "On March 4, three Midwestern University professors wrote to warn the Army Corps of Engineers that its concrete navigation structures in the Mississippi River were intensifying floods, and that its plans to build more wingdikes and weirs would 'exacerbate a severe and growing problem.' They called some of the structures — designed to scour out the river's bottom so that barges could pass — 'loaded cannons pointing at St. Louis and East St. Louis, waiting to go off in the next flood.' Citing 'clear and unequivocal data' from a dozen peer-reviewed articles, they declared that 'the time to ask these questions is now, and not in the aftermath of the next great flood.' "
   
   "The Army Corps, the troubled, gung-ho public works agency that bears much of the blame for leaving New Orleans underwater, blew off the academics' concerns."
   
   "The Army Corps is always completely confident, even when it's completely wrong. Its levees protecting St. Louis and East St. Louis survived this year's great flood, thanks in part to dozens of levee breaks upstream that reduced the pressure downstream, but there is powerful evidence that the Corps' mania for concrete significantly magnified the flood's power. Army Corps structures aren't the only reason 500-year floods seem to be hitting the Mississippi every 15 years, but a National Science Foundation-funded database of 8 million hydrologic measurements suggests they are the most important reason." 06-08

3. Why More Men Die in Floods (Time.com)
   "A study of U.S. thunderstorm-related deaths from 1994 to 2000 found that men were more than twice as likely to die than women. Of the 1,442 fatalities, 70% were men, according to research by Thomas Songer at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health. Most of the deaths happened outside the home during flash floods or lightning strikes. That is partly because men are more likely to be outside for their jobs. But men are also more likely to take risks of all kinds — which can be a fatally bad idea in ugly weather."
   
   "Most storm deaths happen the same way: people drown when they try to drive or walk through floodwater. The brain is not very good at assessing the depth and strength of water on a road. Water can hide dips and valleys, making the path look smooth and shallow when it is not. And the brain is even worse at assessing the risk of anything that appears to be familiar or within control — like driving a car in the rain. To add to the general cognitive confusion, flash floods can happen quickly, without any warning at all."
   
   'So what can men (and women) do to override their brain's blind spots? The simplest solution is to stay inside." The article then provides some survival strategies." 06-08

4. -08-19-10 Pakistani Floods Are the "Worst Imaginable" (ABC News)
   "Ambassador Richard Holbrooke painted an ugly picture of the devastation from the floods in Pakistan that have left 4 million people homeless.
   
   "The special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan said they are 'the worst floods imaginable,' affecting 20 million people, submerging an area the size of Italy and ruining much of the county’s infrastructure." 08-10

5. Disasters - How to Prepare for a Natural Disaster (Epicenter)
   Describes how to plan for a disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, or tornadoes.

6. Disasters - How to Keep Your Family Safe (American Red Cross)
   Describes how to plan for disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, or tornadoes.

7. 09-03-02 Johannesburg - Russia Signs Kyoto Agreement (CBS News)
   "Russia announced Tuesday it will ratify an accord on reducing smokestack emissions and other causes of global warming."
   
   "Russia's ratification of Kyoto would meet the last requirement for the accord to come into effect: that the countries on board account for at least 55 percent of carbon dioxide emissions based on 1990 output."
   
   "The United States continued to be criticized for its rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, which requires developed nations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases to 1990 levels by 2012. Many countries view the accord as crucial to reversing a global warming trend blamed for cataclysmic storms, floods and droughts worldwide."

8. Help Arrives -- Too Late for Many (CBS News)
   "No one knows how many were killed by Hurricane Katrina's floods and how many more succumbed waiting to be rescued. But the bodies are everywhere: hidden in attics, floating among the ruined city, crumpled on wheelchairs, abandoned on highways."
   
   "And the dying goes on — at the convention center and an airport triage center, where bodies were kept in a refrigerated truck."
   
   " 'The first few days were a natural disaster. The last four days were a man-made disaster,' said Phillip Holt, 51, who was rescued from his home Saturday with his partner and three of their aging Chihuahuas." 9-05

9. -10-11-05 Global Aid for Guatemala (MSNBC News)
   "Authorities abandoned efforts Tuesday to recover bodies from a deadly landslide and turned to international agencies to help feed, clothe and treat the tens of thousands of residents who lost everything in a week of deadly rains and floods."
   
   "The government Monday night issued an urgent call to the United Nations, seeking $21.5 million in aid because its own emergency response funds would not be enough to cope with the crisis."
   
   "Several countries already have offered to provide assistance to Guatemala, including flood-stricken Mexico. Sweden has donated $5 million, and Spain, France and Taiwan have sent aid shipments."
   
   "The United States has delivered 5,000 hygiene kits, 5,000 blankets, 15,000 gallons of drinking water and 11,000 gallons of fuel to victims in Guatemala, officials said. U.S. helicopters shuttled food and water to isolated villages and a medical unit from the Arkansas National Guard also was preparing to go to the region." 10-05

10. Flood Stories (TalkOrigins.org)
    Provides over 100 stories of great floods from cultures around the world. 06-06

11. Climate Report: Massive Extinctions Expected (MSNBC News)
    "A key element of the second major report on climate change being released Friday in Belgium is a chart that maps out the effects of global warming with every degree of temperature rise, most of them bad."
    
    "There’s one bright spot: A minimal heat rise means more food production in northern regions of the world."
    
    "However, the number of species going extinct rises with the heat, as does the number of people who may starve, or face water shortages, or floods, according to the projections in the draft report obtained by The Associated Press."
    
    "The final document will be the product of a United Nations network of 2,000 scientists as authors and reviewers, along with representatives of more than 120 governments as last-minute editors. It will be the second of a four-volume authoritative assessment of Earth’s climate released this year. The last such effort was in 2001." 03-07

12. Disaster Preparation

13. Methods of Scale to Increase Sequestration (Time.com)
    "CO2, the scientists concluded, is piling up faster than ever in the air, not only because our emissions continue to rise but also because the ocean and land have quit sopping up as much as they used to. Apparently, they've had enough."
    
    "Dialing back emissions now will thus be less effective than we hope, because a growing share of what we still produce will stay in the sky rather than being absorbed by the oceans and land. The answer may be to quit thinking about solving climate change as only a matter of cutting greenhouse gases off at the source and to start considering how to clean up the mess that's already there. After all, when a busted pipe floods your home, you do more than just fix the leak and let evaporation take care of the water. You get out a bucket and start mopping." 07-08

14. -11-16-11 "Mountain Tsunamis" Expected in Bhutan (Time.com)
    "The Kingdom of Bhutan, tucked between India and China in the foothills of the Himalaya mountain range, is paying the price for global industrialization. To the north of the country, a chain of Himalayan glaciers is rapidly retreating — by between 20 m and 30 m per year. Experts blame climate change and predict that by 2035, the glaciers could be gone altogether."
    
    "Water flows from these melting glaciers until it breaks the natural ice dams that hold it in place. That, in turn, can result in devastating floods like the one that occurred in 1994, when a torrent of mud killed dozens of people in Bhutan and wiped out entire villages. Western scientists call this phenomenon a glacial-lake-outburst flood, or GLOF. With 24 of its 2,674 glacial lakes considered unstable, Bhutan is preparing in the coming years for even deadlier 'mountain tsunamis,' as the phenomenon is sometimes referred to." 11-11

15. -09-08-12 Climate Change Is a New Campaign Topic (Christian Science Monitor)
    "Climate change had been virtually absent from the campaign until Mitt Romney and President Obama traded jabs at their conventions. Some polls say it could be a vote-getter for Democrats."
    
    " 'President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet,' Mr. Romney told GOP delegates in Tampa, a smile on his face. 'My promise [long pause – audience laughter] is to help you and your family.' "
    
    " 'Yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet – because climate change is not a hoax,' the president shouted to delegates in Charlotte, N.C. 'More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They're a threat to our children's future. And in this election, you can do something about it.' "
    
    "That high-profile statement, political analysts say, may have marked a major turnabout for the president, who has scarcely mentioned global warming – or the more scientific designation of 'climate change' – in recent months." 09-12

16. Starfish Killing the Great Coral Reef (CNN News)
    “ 'The debate is over. This latest research demonstrates that more decisive action to cut chemical fertilizer is urgently needed to prevent unprecedented and on-going outbreaks of Crown of Thorns starfish, which are in turn converting the Great Barrier Reef into rubble,' WWF-Australia spokesperson Nick Heath said in a statement."
    
    "According to the study, the starfish in its larval stage feeds on plankton, populations of which surge when fertilizer runoff floods the coastal ocean waters with nutrients. So plentiful plankton can lead to swarms of hungry starfish."
    
    "The starfish consume the corals by climbing onto them, thrusting out their stomachs, and bathing the coral in digestive enzymes, which liquefy it for ingestion. Adult crown-of-thorns starfish, ranging in size from 9 to 18 inches in diameter and with up to 21 arms, can eat nearly a square foot of coral each in a day." 10-12

17. -Terrifying New Math on Global Warming (RollingStone.com)
    The global leaders have determined that 2 degrees Centigrade (or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is the most global temperature change we can have without triggering a catastrophe: "All told, 167 countries responsible for more than 87 percent of the world's carbon emissions have signed on to the Copenhagen Accord, endorsing the two-degree target.”
    
    "Some context: So far, we've raised the average temperature of the planet just under 0.8 degrees Celsius, and that has caused far more damage than most scientists expected. (A third of summer sea ice in the Arctic is gone, the oceans are 30 percent more acidic, and since warm air holds more water vapor than cold, the atmosphere over the oceans is a shocking five percent wetter, loading the dice for devastating floods.) Given those impacts, in fact, many scientists have come to think that two degrees is far too lenient a target."
    
    "But, in fact, computer models calculate that even if we stopped increasing CO2 now, the temperature would likely still rise another 0.8 degrees, as previously released carbon continues to overheat the atmosphere. That means we're already three-quarters of the way to the two-degree target." 12-13

18. Disasters - How to Prepare for a Natural Disaster (DisasterEducation.org)
    Describes how to plan for a disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, or tornadoes.

19. Asia-Pacific Disaster Response Plan (Time.com)
    "Asia-Pacific powers on Thursday announced an ambitious plan to pool their military and civilian resources for disaster responses in a region beset by cyclones, earthquakes and floods." 07-08