Reading Keith’s post “Burning Down the House, I surfed over to planet 3.0 where I found discussions of flooding in Thailand
Micheal posted the questions
Right now there are astonishing floods in Thailand. How, for example, should we think of them? Are they once-in-a-lifetime floods? Or unheard-of floods? If they are once-in-a-lifetime floods, are they becoming twice-in-a-lifetime floods? How much does that matter?
My first thought was: I have no idea. While I have some familiarity of with the frequency of flooding on the now flat-banked Des Plaines river in Illinois, I have no idea whether people are being displaced because, over time, they decided to build in places that flood often, or whether the new areas are being flooded. That means if I were thinking about what this flood tells me about climate change, I’d have say: I have no idea.
I did a little googling. I can’t say I really found information that helps me place the flood in context of climate change. But I did learn the answer to one of Tobis’s questions. Flooding of Bangkok would not be “unheard-of”. It happened in 1942 but has not yet happened in 2011. Of course, this still doesn’t tell me whether the current flood is as bad or worse than that in 1942, whether man-made factors including but not limited to climate change have made the current floods worse.
YouTube didn’t exist in 1942. Still, I did find a movie about 1942 flooding that the flood look like an inconvenience for some and lots of fun for others. At minute 5, I see what appear to be a bunch of prosperous tourists wearing clean, freshly pressed clothes frolicking in the flood waters!
Had YouTube existed, I’m sure we’d get a broader view of the event.
Where did that guy smoking a cigarette sitting in the water stash his pack – maybe in his left shirt sleeve? The thinking observers want to know.
Pielke, Jr has studied whether flooding can be attributed to AGW, with his answer being “no.” One article of his:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/02/flood-disasters-and-human-caused.html
Ah, the Venice of the East. Beautiful city. Sinking two inches a year due to subsidence. Authorities playing squeeze the balloon by building up the banks of the Chao Phraya river a bit at a time.
Quick internet search shows extensive flooding in 1983, 1995, experienced 4.25 meters of flooding in 1785, 3.2 meters of flooding in 1819.
As for the cigarettes, they used to buy them one at a time, so there may not be a pack to search for. Don’t know if they still do that, though.
Some flooding is not unusual in Bangkok (i.e. flooding to the extent that would be news worthy in most cities but which the residents of Bangkok take in their stride). Many roads are built over the paths of former canals.
Historical comparisons aren’t going to be very useful. Prior to the Asian economic collapse in the late 1990s Bangkok had undergone a massive expansion – both in the extent of the city and the size of the buildings.
The answer to that depends on how much of the flooding is associated with severe precipitation events and how much of it is associated with land-usage changes.
I’ll recommend this again.
The problem with some people is they see their favorite boogey-man in everything, and more pedestrian explanations aren’t ever allowed to be considered.
Carrick–
I agree about the land-use changes. One of the reasons I understand the Des Plaines river issues is I grew up in a house just adjacent to the flood plain. The river runs through the east side of Libertyville, Illinois, and along that stretch, for long time, ran through mostly forest preserve and farms. Further south, the town of Des Plaines suffers worse when it rises because the river runs through parts that were developed longer ago, and to some extent upstream building may be permitting water to rush to the river faster, making Des Plaines more flood prone. My mother is mostly downstream of a big forest preserve region that permits the river to spread quite a bit when it floods. So, the flood plain in her back yard isn’t as strongly affected by upstream development.
I spent four years in Southeast Asia (Viet Nam , Indonesia, etc). Every year the monsoons brought incredible rain. I once sat in a shelter and watched it rain 48 inches in one week. The locals took it as a common event and simply moved to higher ground.
We’re leaving for Bangkok on Nov 2. This is a self concocted tour by spouse, old Thaliland hand from the ’70s. So 5 days in Bangkok, Suk 11, then Chiang Mai, Then Chiang Kong, 2 days on Mekong to Luang Prabang, fly to Siem Riep, Cambodia, see Angkor Wat, then drive to central Thailand, stay with friends, then fly out of Bangkok, via Beijing to Chicago.
We have Thai friends as well as farong friends in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. Idea is to press on, but with a reality check by Thai in Bangkok that our arrival will be good for the small hotel and not a burden, if it doesn’t wash, then we’ll fly straight to Chiang Mai from Bangkok.
Back in states Nov 29.
j ferguson–
What timing. Take photos! Maybe you can guest blog your trip.
Carrick (Oct 24 12:45)
> I’ll recommend this again.
I couldn’t get that link to work, could you post it again?
Sorry ’bout that AMac. Let’s try ‘er again:
Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America [Paperback] by John M. Barry
It’s not just the Bangkok floods, there are many floods occurring over the recent extended La Nina. It is interesting to see what is happening. La Nina is associated with heavier rainfall in many areas of the world. Now that the world is warmer, those floods seem to be more extreme. There has been Pakistan, Australia, China, and much more of Asia. At the same time Texas is experiencing a record drought.
While past picutres show flooding in Bangkok that looks similar, the amount of rainfall itself is worse, and people forget that we now have modern technology to cope with extreme events. In fact, adaptation has been said by many to be the solution. Adaptation doesn’t seem to work too well, either.
bugs–
Do you have a reference that shows the amount of rain is worse? Reading that would help us decide what to think.
“I have seen some images that make me wonder if Thailanders don’t take floods in stride more than most of us. One picture showed a family, perched up on tables and sofa backs, watching television in their knee-deep flooded house. People seem to be grinning and bearing it. Maybe I am misreading it, but perhaps the lack of presence of the Thai floods on the front pages is appropriate. This is a rare event, but not an unheard of one, and people are prepared for it, like a blizzard in Montreal or a hurricane in Texas. Yet if a comparable area were underwater in most countries it might be much more severe, because it would have no precedent.”
It would appear that I could take this argument of Michael Tobis to mean that when and if climate change makes extreme events more frequent the tendency will be that they become unprecedented and therefore more tolerated by the people exposed to them.
I have always thought, that those pushing for immediate AGW mitigation, that extreme events and pushing them as the result of AGW would be a major rallying point for the cause. My take on Tobis’ comments would appear to dash those thoughts/hopes.
Will the young Thai, pictured by Tobis and above here at the Blackboard, calmly smoking a cigarette while sitting in the flooded street, become a poster boy for adaptation to AGW?
Kenneth:Will the young Thai, pictured by Tobis and above here at the Blackboard, calmly smoking a cigarette while sitting in the flooded street, become a poster boy for adaptation to AGW?
.
Oh yes please!
.
“Look, GW ain’t so bad, you can just sit nonchalantly in the water and calmly light up the cigarettes that you’ve been stashing in the attic, along with everything else!” 🙂
bugs:
Mostly occurring in developing countries with rapidly growing populations.
In the US, we started having problems in the 20s and 30s that were readily identifiable with changes in land usage (e.g., clear-cutting of forests, draining and populating wetlands, even building levees in newly urbanized areas causes problems downstream).
Lucia:
That still wouldn’t necessarily tell us which is the larger driver, though it would be a start (if extreme precipitation aren’t increasing in frequency, the global warming as universal boogieman theory would be in big trouble).
Carrick-
Yes. Reading whether there actually is or is not more rains would help us. Bugs — who uses an alias– posting a claim, doesn’t even help us in our thinking because…. well… who knows whether bugs even knows what he is talking about?
bugs:
I thought that the official doctrine was that CAGW causes drought (e.g., http://www2.ucar.edu/news/2904/climate-change-drought-may-threaten-much-globe-within-decades)
That it is causing flooding in the exact same regions covered by the drought prediction is pretty scary if not spooky and magical.
Is there some web site that keeps the latest alarmist official beliefs posted in summary form so that believers can refer to it and stay au courant?
@GeorgeTobin “That it is causing flooding in the exact same regions covered by the drought prediction is pretty scary if not spooky and magical.”
No – it isn’t even odd or unusual. With or without global warming some regions really do experience a climate that is prone to both drought and floods.
It causes weather events to be more extreme. Could be a drought, or a flood. With more water in the atmosphere, especially during a La Nina in those areas that are affected that way, precipitation events would be expected.
http://www.chiefscientist.qld.gov.au/publications/understanding-floods/future.aspx
An example of a flash flood. This is a flash flood that was described as an ‘inland tsunami’ the water rose so fast.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmOw5B8gXyI&feature=related
The floods happened just after an extended period of severe drought.
Bangkok is built on a delta plain. Deltas form by flow expansion causing sediment deposition, i.e. flooding. Bangkok is situated approximately 30km from the coast and 2m above sea level. A very low gradient, and floods are likely to persist. The climate is monsoonal, and it is currently monsoon season.
From first priciples we can deduce that the area Bangkok is built on is prone to frequent and persistent floods.
Are US floods increasing? The answer is still No. And similar results around the world….
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/10/are-us-floods-increasing-answer-is.html
Mai Bpen Rai…
Re: bugs (Oct 25 02:25),
Thank you Captain Obvious.
So your ‘prediction’ is in fact just speculation. Since ENSO isn’t well understood and is not an emergent process in climate models, not to mention that climate models have no skill at the regional level, saying that there will be more severe weather or more droughts and floods because of changes in ENSO is a nothing but a guess. The downscaling calculations that claim to show changes in regional weather are a joke and a complete waste of money and time at the current level of sophistication of climate models.
bug:
I view this as a religious mantra that some of you guys chant without any idea where it comes from, and unfortunately it doesn’t even follow from the physics or the observations. Colder weather leads to more extreme weather events, not warmer. This statement is built into the physics of a saturating nonlinearity (which must be present, or climate would have runaway a long time ago.)
There is a limited sense in which one might see more violent weather: possibly more frequent hurricanes and possibly a shift in the southern jet stream in the US that might make tornadogenesis more likely. There is no statistical evidence that either of these have occurred:
Look at ACE for cyclonic energy, for tornados, we’ve gotten better at counting small tornados so the total count has increased, but the evidence does not favor a trend : look at just EF3-EF5 for which no observational bias should be present, and if anything there is a weak downward trend.
From your quote:
The first of these is a future event—there hasn’t been enough change in sea level rise to affect the likelihood of flooding, especially compared to geological processes like subsidence (which has affected Bangkok’s and New Orlean’s probability of getting flooded).
One thing to keep in mind is as long as sea level change is gradual enough compared to geological processes, it will never be a dominant driver in human adaptation to a changing planet. While I don’t preclude this happening in the future, it’s definitely pulling the trigger too quickly to make the call it has already happened.
The second issue relates to precipitation, we’re asking for data to show that a statistically significant increase in rain fall has happened in Thailand. If it hasn’t, then we know we can’t attribute the current flooding to precipitation increase. If it has, then we still have to eliminate other possible causes, such as land use changes, and governmental incompetence in terms of their own ecological policies that allow e.g. clear cutting on hill sides and allow populations to build on flood plains.
Carrick:
It is religious, you heretic.
As far as I know the scientific consensus is that if there is warming there will be an increase in the average size of storms, which increase will only be detectable over a long period of time because it is small (but significant) and because there is considerable variability. The total number of storms may even decrease but are not expected to increase.
The True Believers can instead rely on Prof. Mann’s very lame 2006 work in which he is pretty sure there is a massive increase in hurricanes after putting the data in the ole Mannomatic and ginning up a missing heat plug-in. McIntyre had fun with that.
But the “a Katrina every day because of Exxon” meme serves the narrative so I guess bugs has to believe it and preach it. Any and all extreme weather is due to SUVs and Haliburton sayeth The Science. Amen.
The state of the science regarding hurricanes is a consistent triumphalist favorite topic of noted non-alarmist Patrick Michaels.
The bottom line is that one can’t lecture people about a great love for scientific consensus and still claim that hurricanes, tornadoes and storm damage are currently up due to AGW.
@Tobin
“But the “a Katrina every day because of Exxon†meme serves the narrative so I guess bugs has to believe it and preach it. Any and all extreme weather is due to SUVs and Haliburton sayeth The Science. Amen.”
I never said that. There have been repeated extreme flooding events in South East Asia of the past La Nina cycle, which has been a protracted one. Spence gives us his view of what more moisture in the atmosphere means.
Look at the picture on this page.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/09/five-reasons-why-water-vapor-feedback-might-not-be-positive/
The picture is quite scenic and non alarming. The reality is that there have been many extreme flood events. If it was just a one off in Thailand, that would be just something that happens.
There have been extreme floods in
Pakistan
China
Indonesia
Australia
Thailand
Vietnam
India
Nepal
Not a one off. Not just a gentle shower over the ocean.
bugs:
Yep and this flooding’s been happening for about 10,000 years.
It’s just gotten worse as the population has increased (there’s an anthropogenic effect in there somewhere if you look really hard. 😎 ).
What you keep ignoring as inconvenient is that humans have other impacts on their environment besides CO2 emissions.
When all you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail.
bugs–
There are some places that get torrential rains and always have. Some places lakes form and dry up every year. Others, every decade and so on. People make decisions about farming etc.
The mere fact that torrential rains fall some places doesn’t tell use much about climate change. “Extreme floods” are often defined as “water that rose in places where people planted things or built things.” In contrast, if no one planted or built anything there, it’s not seen as a flood.
So, if you want to connect this to something, you need to figure out whether water always rose and fell there. If you want to connect it to climate change, you have to show the change is due to climate change and not changes in drainage, size of water detention, retention, drainage etc.
I happen to have absolutely no idea about any of this in Thailand. But reading your mere unsupported declarations, all I know is I still have no idea.
Bangkock is just in the way. The floods themselves occured further away in the North of Thailand, and they were extreme in nature.
Yes, this flood is quite a story. Bangkok hasn’t been flooded like this in a long time, and it’s probably going to create a lot more problems to come in the next few weeks. Now there are even crocodiles that escaped from various locations and roaming around. I don’t know if flood insurance exists in Thailand yet, but I think I’ll check with a Bangkok lawyer to find out. I think any person or business that wants to avoid property damage from this flood may have a hard time protecting their things from damage, and insurance would be something that could find a useful purpose in this situation. Crocodiles are equally a threat however. Not so much to property, but to people! I hope I don’t see one swimming around outside my apartment in the coming weeks. What a nightmare!
bugs, we just had an extremely mild summer where I live. Was that also due to climate change?
Thailand has extremely poor land use law and policy resulting in extreme deforestation and extremely bad soil conservation practices making extreme flooding damage extremely likely. Damn climate change!
Just to be clear, “extreme” weather events in now the official term of art as opposed to “unprecedented”? I count on you, bugs, to keep us up to date on the sociolo-linguistic construction of AGW as it evolves.
bugs:
That’s pretty typical of a situation where you have land-usage changes, especially deforestation and agricultural development.
I grew up near a river (upstream area) that frequently flooded when I was a kid. As land usage was pushed back towards naturalized (levees removed that had been added to protect farm land, and trees were replanted to cover bare hillsides, etc), the floods got less and less severe each year.
I take it you have nothing beyond a narrative that it’s worse that we expected, or you would have offered it by now. What I see is a pattern typical expected in regions that get heavy annual rainfall, as humans begin utilizing resources.
If you look at Thailand, rainfall is typically fairly heavy this time of year. I looked at several reporting weather stations in the northern part of Thailand, and couldn’t find any that were extreme (even close to record). It wasn’t a very extensive study so YMMV.
I always have to do bugs heavy lifting for him.
How exceptional is Thailand’s rainfall in 2011?
They are high but by no means record levels:
Figure
Fourth highest in 100 years is not “record level”. Nor from the figure, is there any notable trend either in extreme precipitation for the region or for even an increase in rain fall.
Fourth highest in 100 years is extreme, and the point I was making was not that there is one extreme event happening now, extreme events do happen, but that so many have in such a short period of time in that region of the globe.
And on a related note.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3601942.html
Stefan Ramstorf on the Arctic Ice extreme events.
bugs-
According to Katsman and van Oldenborgh 2011, apparently the recent period without upper ocean warming is not considered “exceptional” because there is a 57% (which should actually be around 33%, as I go over) likilihood of it occuring by “chance” within a 31-year period, according to a particular model.
If we use an 8% chance to represent the probability of a top or bottom 4 rainfall event each year in Thailand over that hundred years, there was a 92.5% that we’d see one in these last 31 years. Apparently that means it is not “exceptional”. Can something be “extreme” without being “exceptional”? Sorry for the rhetorical question…my answer would be “no”, but hopefully this comment has been taken with the tongue-in-cheek spirit in which I’m writing it.
bugs:
Learn some statistics bugs. Extreme events are correlated, especially regionally, and as extreme goes there is nothing record breaking here.
You fixating on extreme weather is no different than people on the other side fixating on a period of “flattened temperature increases” (or people on your side fixating on “unflattening” the flattened temperatures).
The Australian floods were record breaking, the Pakistan floods were record breaking. Add North Korea to the list of countries with recent extreme flooding.
bugs:
“The Australian floods were record breaking, the Pakistan floods were record breaking. Add North Korea to the list of countries with recent extreme flooding.”
Record breaking in what sense?
Amount of rain?
Area covered?
People killed?
Financial damage?
The population and urbanisation of those areas is also probably at an all time high.
And how far back do those records records go?
Since I broached the subject of our coming trip, I thought an update in light of the breaching might be good. Friends resident in Bangkok have bailed, so to speak; gone to the beach.
So we are bypassing Bangkok and flying to Sukothai from Bangkok Airport – the dry one. We may take a shot at Bangkok at end of trip.
I was involved in a office/warehouse development in Mount Prospect IL, in 1980. Much of the land was Des Plaines River flood plain, and even in 1980, the permitting people thought it unwise to decrease the volume of the flood plain. This meant that we had to compensate for the lost flood volume the plinths we built on consumed – We put in lagoons, which also served as rainwater detention basins. I had fun calculating the necessary volumes.
j ferguson–
Yes. The various permitting agencies now pay a lot of attention to the Des Plaines food plain. In Libertyville, there was an area in the north end that flooded in 1986. Near my mother’s house, it was more a matter of water getting “scary high” in the region Mom always called “the family lake”. She called it that because it was a portion of the flood plain that flooded *every single year*. Often in January. Most years, the “flood” was about 4″ deep and acres in surface area. It would freeze over. We skated on it. Some years– or in the same year, but in other months it would be deeper.
(On year, our chihuahua “saved” a kid who decided to walk on the ice. The kid fell through, and the chihuahua just wouldn’t stop yapping, until Mom went to the window and saw a kid 1/4 mile off flayling his arms. She called the police who got there in minutes and got him out. (It wouldn’t have been possible for someone to get the kid w/o equipment. )
Fortunately, the kid didn’t fall through on the other side of the trees where the actual river is. The dog wouldn’t have seen him!
bugs (Comment #84681)
October 27th, 2011 at 1:31 am
The Australian floods were record breaking
Watching the Qld floods as they occurred, one news item had a guy standing next to a tree with a previous flood marker at leat 2 metres higher than the current flood level. I do not remember the year of the previous flood but I’m sure it was several decades ago, at least.
How does that make the 2010 floods ‘record breaking’?
Bugs still doesn’t understand weather or climate. Records are meant to be broken. If we get a few more really warm arctic summer ice melts it may even expose the rest of those 1100 AD Viking farming settlements in Greenland. A field day for archeologists;)