We begin today’s roundup with Eric Holthaus at Politico:
Now is the time to say it as loudly as possible: Harvey is what climate change looks like. More specifically, Harvey is what climate change looks like in a world that has decided, over and over, that it doesn’t want to take climate change seriously. [...] As with Katrina, Harvey gives us an opportunity for an inflection point as a society. The people of Houston didn’t choose this to happen to them, but what happens next is critically important for all of us.
Climate change is making rainstorms everywhere worse, but particularly on the Gulf Coast. Since the 1950s, Houston has seen a 167 percent increase in the frequency of the most intense downpours. Climate scientist Kevin Trenberth thinks that as much as 30 percent of the rainfall from Harvey is attributable to human-caused global warming. That means Harvey is a storm decades in the making.
While Harvey’s rains are unique in U.S. history, heavy rainstorms are increasing in frequency and intensity worldwide. One recent study showed that by mid-century, up to 450 million people worldwide will be exposed to a doubling of flood frequency. This isn’t just a Houston problem. This is happening all over.
AFP:
Scientists freely acknowledge they don't know everything about how global warming affects hurricanes like the one pummeling southeast Texas.
But what they do know is enough to keep them up at night.
The amplifying impact of sea level rise, warming oceans, and hotter air — all incontrovertible consequences of climate change — is basic physics, they say. [...]
"It is awfully difficult to see climate change in historical data so far because hurricanes are fairly rare," Kerry Emmanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at MIT in Boston, told AFP.
Experts, in other words, do not disagree on the potential of manmade global warming to magnify the destructive power of the tropical storms known variously around the world as cyclones, hurricanes, and typhoons.
Rather, they are confounded — for now — by a lack of information.
Michael Mann at The Guardian lays out the facts on sea level rise and temperature:
Sea level rise attributable to climate change – some of which is due to coastal subsidence caused by human disturbance such as oil drilling – is more than half a foot (15cm) over the past few decades (see here for a decent discussion). That means the storm surge was half a foot higher than it would have been just decades ago, meaning far more flooding and destruction.
In addition to that, sea surface temperatures in the region have risen about 0.5C (close to 1F) over the past few decades from roughly 30C (86F) to 30.5C (87F), which contributed to the very warm sea surface temperatures (30.5-31C, or 87-88F).
Here is Eugene Robinson’s analysis:
The relationship between climate and weather is undeniable but never specific. Tropical cyclones do not batter Siberia’s arctic coast and heavy snowfalls do not blanket the beaches of Barbados because the climates are different. But no one blizzard or hurricane can be attributed to climate change beyond the shadow of a doubt — which opens anyone who raises the subject at a time like this to the accusation of “politicizing” a disaster.
The science explaining climate change is clear, however, no matter what deniers such as President Trump choose to believe. And it will be political decisions that determine how often we witness scenes of devastation like those in Houston.
Don’t miss John Nichols on the flood insurance program under Trump:
Even before Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, with devastating impact on the infrastructure of a flooded Houston and other communities, the Trump administration was thinking about and acting on flood-control policies.
Unfortunately, the president’s team was thinking about what corporate interests wanted, and acting on their behalf—even as specialists on flooding issues pleaded with the administration to do otherwise. On August 15, Trump and his team overturned an Obama-administration rule requiring that infrastructure projects, including roads and bridges, be designed to withstand the consequences of climate change—such as rising sea levels.