• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022 January 31, 2023
Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB January 31, 2023
Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty January 31, 2023
Rainforest Carbon Credits from World’s Biggest Provider are ‘Largely Worthless’, Investigation Finds January 31, 2023
Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing January 23, 2023
Next
Prev

Cities face flash flood hazards

May 15, 2016
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Tim Radford

 

Scientists in Australia warn that global warming will lead to more intense and concentrated summer storms seriously testing city drainage systems already struggling to cope.

LONDON, 15 May, 2016 – Climate change could bring the equivalent of the flash flood to the modern city. That is because, as global temperatures rise, summer storms will deposit more moisture.

  • Concise headlines. Original content. Timely news and views from a select group of opinion leaders. Special extras.
  • Everything you need, nothing you don’t.
  • The Weekender: The climate news you need.
New!
Subscribe

Australian scientists say peak rainfall will also be more intense, over a more confined area and over a shorter timespan. And when overwhelming levels of rain fall on asphalt, tiles and cement, drainage systems built for a different climate regime may fail to cope.

“As warming proceeds, storms are shrinking in space and time,” says Conrad Wasko, a PhD candidate in the school of civil and environmental engineering at the University of New South Wales (UNSW).

“They are becoming more concentrated over a smaller area, and the rainfall is coming down more plentifully and with more intensity over a shorter period of time. When the storm shrinks to that extent, you have a huge amount of rain coming down over a smaller area.”

Total precipitation

Most climate predictions are based on computer simulations that extend existing data. But this study is based on storms that have already happened.

Wasko and his colleagues report in Geophysical Research Letters that they analysed data from 1,300 rain gauges and 1,700 temperature stations across Australia to look for a link in the local temperature to the total precipitation, duration and area of a cloudburst.

The meteorologist’s rule of thumb is that the potential moisture content of the atmosphere increases by 7% with every 1°C temperature rise, so it follows that summer storms should potentially deliver more rainfall. The same scientists last year established that storms were getting briefer in duration.

“We are finding the pattern repeating itself
over and over, happening around Australia
and around the world”

The latest study looked at the area of rainfall and found that the heaviest downpour had moved nearer to the centre of each storm. And although the testing ground was confined to Australia, the study could have a message for city planners and hydraulic engineers worldwide.

Professor Ashish Sharma, one of the co-authors of the UNSW study, says: “Australia is a continent that spans almost all the climate zones in the world – Mediterranean, tropical, temperate, subtropical – everything except the Arctic or Antarctic. So the results hold a lot of value. We are finding the pattern repeating itself over and over, happening around Australia and around the world.

“Look at the incidence of flooding in Mumbai or in Bangkok last year – you see urban streets full of water. You see it now in Jakarta and Rome and many parts of Canada. That’s because the stormwater infrastructure cannot handle the rain, and part of the reason there’s more rain is the increase in global temperatures.”

Measurable difference

In addition to record temperatures during heatwaves, Australia has been hit by devastating floods linked to climate change, and in 2010 so much rain fell on the continent that it made a measurable difference to sea levels.

The Australian authors had already predicted that floods in some places – especially the warmer urban areas – could increase by 40%. But there are a number of uncertainties.

“When we say that the storms are shrinking in space and shrinking in time, and we say floods will increase, we are making an assumption that the volume of water coming down is not changing,” Professor Sharma says.

“That assumption is very conservative, because you would expect the air to hold more moisture. If you factor in that as well, there’ll be even more rainfall, and more floods.” – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
43
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
26
Western Arctic National Parklands/wikimedia commons
Arctic & Antarctica

Arctic Wildfires Show Approach of New Climate Feedback Loop

January 2, 2023
28

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Mike Mozart/Flickr

BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022

February 4, 2023
332
Sam Balto/YouTube

Elementary School’s Bike Bus Brings ‘Sheer Joy’ to Portland Neighbourhood

February 5, 2023
262
Kenuoene/pixabay

$50B Opportunity Means ‘Go Time’ for Canadian Renewables: CanREA CEO

December 19, 2022
574
EcoAnalytics

Albertans Want a Just Transition, Despite Premier’s Grumbling

January 23, 2023
326
RL0919/wikimedia commons

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2.4k
United Nations

Salvage of $20B ‘Floating Time Bomb’ Delayed by Rising Cost of Oil Tankers

January 27, 2023
123

Recent Posts

Gina Dittmer/PublicDomainPictures

Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB

January 31, 2023
196
CONFENIAE

Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

January 31, 2023
61
Ken Teegardin www.SeniorLiving.Org/flickr

Virtual Power Plants Hit an ‘Inflection Point’

January 31, 2023
125
/snappy goat

Rainforest Carbon Credits from World’s Biggest Provider are ‘Largely Worthless’, Investigation Finds

January 31, 2023
94
Victorgrigas/wikimedia commons

World Bank Climate Reforms Too ‘Timid and Slow,’ Critics Warn

January 31, 2023
42
Doc Searls/Twitter

Guilbeault Could Intervene on Ontario Greenbelt Development

January 31, 2023
132
Next Post
MyName (Fundy)/wikimedia commons

What We Need To Know About Wave and Tidal Energy Impacts

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}