A new study looking back over 1,000 years finds the flooding risk along the New York and New Jersey coasts increased greatly after industrialization, and major storms that once might have occurred every 500 years could soon happen every 25 years or so… The study by Penn State, Rutgers, Princeton, and Tufts universities, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, finds that flood heights have risen nearly 4 feet since the year 850, largely because of a sea level rise. The study advocates better risk management strategies to cope with storms… “A storm that occurred once in seven generations is now occurring twice in a generation,” said Benjamin Horton of Rutgers, one of six lead researchers involved in the study. “What we do know is that as sea level rise accelerates into the future, we are going to have more frequent flooding.”… “Every inch deeper in a core takes you further back in time,” Horton said. “We can stretch this technique back hundreds of years and thousands of years.”
Did Climate Change, El Nino Make Texas Floods Worse?
When massive floods hit Texas and Oklahoma in May, the disaster sparked a debate on what role, if any, climate change played… It found global warming along with El Nino likely played a role in worsening the floods. El Nino weather patterns occur when the equatorial waters of the Pacific Ocean warm significantly, causing increased rain in some parts of the world and drought in others… David A. Robinson, the New Jersey State Climatologist and a professor at Rutgers University who did not take part on the study, said he found the findings of the AGU paper “plausible.”… “To me, it emphasizes the fact that at present and for decades to come we must factor in some underlying influence of our changing climate – the baseline climate if you will – to any sort of meteorological or climatological events,” Robinson said in an email interview.
What’s Behind the Floods in Texas and Heat in India?
Scientists on Monday made an ominous prediction: We’ll be seeing more extreme weather like the flooding that killed at least 30 people last month in the southern plains, while damaging or destroying thousands of homes. And on the other side of the world, the extraordinary heat wave that killed more than 2,000 in India… In a paper published today, researchers from Rutgers University offered an explanation for why climate change in the arctic is slowing the jet stream over the northern hemisphere, leaving the weather increasingly prone to repeat… “Everything slows, and with it weather patterns persist over areas for longer periods of times that could make a wet situation dangerously wet, it could make a heatwave dangerously long,” said climatologist Dave Robinson.
What’s Behind the Persistent Weather Patterns; “San Andreas”: What’s Real and What’s Not [VIDEO]
The month of May brought persistent floods to Texas and an unrelenting heat wave to India. On Monday, researchers from Rutgers University published an explanation for the repeating weather patterns; Earthquake disaster flick “San Andreas” grossed $53.2 million during its opening weekend despite predictions that people in earthquake-prone areas wouldn’t go see it.
What’s Causing Freezing Temperatures Across the U.S.?
With temperatures in the teens in Washington D.C., the C&O Canal is frozen solid. So are tens of millions of people from Maine to the Carolinas… “And now to add insult to injury there’s been some of the coldest air in the last couple of decades invading the Northeast from the Arctic,” says Dave Robinson, a professor of climatology at Rutgers University. He says what’s behind it all is the polar vortex…”The polar vortex is essentially the coldest air found in the Northern Hemisphere, and it’s situated up in the Arctic in the bulk of the winter,” Robinson says. “But occasionally, a lobe of that will dip south above the jet stream and allow that cold air down into the Middle Atlantic states. Sometimes last winter, it was into the northern Plains.”