Mike Lynch has a story up at the Adirondack Almanac: Adirondack Climate Change: Deluges In The Forecast.
A few years ago, Paul Smith’s College scientist Curt Stager came across a rare find that he says helps tell the story of climate change in the Adirondacks: the journal of Bob Simon, a retired engineer and longtime resident of Cranberry Lake.
...Stager was particularly interested in the entries on thunderstorms because they are not recorded by automated weather stations. Thunderstorms are a form of extreme weather and one of the rain events that are expected to happen more often in the future, he said. Stager hasn’t found any other thunderstorm records in the Adirondacks. He gave the weather records to a group of his students, who analyzed the data for their senior project.
The students found that thunderstorms tended to increase in the period covered by the journal. For instance, from 1969 to 1979, there were between four and nine thunderstorms per year, except in 1973, when there were sixteen. From 1980 to 1989, there were between ten and seventeen, except in 1982, when there were eight.
This is having wide ranging implications for the region. Warmer temps mean more moisture in the air, bigger storms, and less ability to predict the future based on prevailing trends in the past. The time to start making adaptations is now.
The state Department of Transportation has begun making preparations for future storms. Last summer, it replaced seven bridges in the town of Keene with this in mind. The new bridges are wider and higher to allow more water to pass under. They also have stronger foundations. Meanwhile, local and county highway departments replaced culverts along the West Branch of the Ausable last summer with ones that allow for passage of more water.
These types of adaptation strategies for dealing with severe flooding are also outlined in the 2014 New York Rising Community Reconstruction Plan for the towns of Jay and Keene that came about because of Irene. This report also notes the type of ecological harm that flooding can do. Aquatic habitat and riparian corridors suffer damage. Significant bank and soil erosion occurs, including landslides. This causes more fine sediment to get into rivers, which can harm habitat for fish and other aquatic species. Invasive species spread through flooding and also from work that occurs later on by highway departments as soil is moved around.
Climate change affects everything. There’s quite a bit more at the link. Read the whole thing.
While the state is taking action on Climate Change, it’s a policy not being uniformly applied; politics can override science. The last railroad into the central Adirondacks, from Utica to Lake Placid, has been slated by the state to have the last 34 miles of working track ripped out to be replaced by a rail trail.
Local interests want the rails gone for better snowmobiling on the right of way, more outdoor recreation in an area that already has hundreds of miles of trails — and because they want the trains gone. The Cuomo Administration is backing this, with a process across a range of Adirondack issues that is driven more by desired outcomes than facts and the law, according to someone who should know.
The rail line hosts thousands of riders in the summer operating season, pumps millions into the local economy, and is far less vulnerable to climate disruption than the activities being promoted instead. It’s a registered National Historic Landmark, and if fully restored, would connect a region heavily dependent on tourism to America’s national rail passenger network, Amtrak.
In the entire document used to justify this really bad idea, there is not one single mention of climate change.