Best and worst places to survive climate change

Best and worst places to survive climate change 

By Marc Lefkowitz
http://www.gcbl.org/blog/2014/04/best-and-worst-places-to-survive-climate-change

Cleveland may have a natural edge if its stable climate can withstand the ravages of climate change. A new report finds it might have more flooding but also overflowing gardens.

Link: Map of extreme weather events since 2000: http://www.c2es.org/science-impacts/maps/extreme-weather

Five of the worlds to ecologists map data from IPCC to find the best and worst places to survive climate change. This map shows a predicted distribution of precipitation.


The mega-regions of the US will suffer the worst from climate change because of rising sea levels, drought and overconsumption.


Winters are warming - but with average temps still not above freezing, more moisture in the atmosphere, and incursions of the polar vortex that means more mega blizzards. Welcome to the new normal!


A new report, "Sustainability and place: How emerging mega-trends of the 21st century will affect humans and nature at the landscape level" explains that the Industrial Midwest may be a rare example of a "megaregion" that won't be unsustainable if its rethinks its consumption (of land, energy, and products) as a model of growth.
"It is possible that many of the rust belt cities that have experienced population decreases will be more sustainable than more “successful” cities in the northeast and other areas. They now have a lower population density and tend to exist in rich agricultural regions. Indeed, abandoned land is being used for food production in a number of depopulating cities."
Why will “sustainability” help Northeast Ohio grapple with the challenges of climate change?
At its core, sustainability is “the ability of a system to maintain functioning over an extended period of time," they write.
Also, when looking at what will solve climate change, sustainability adherents ask, “...and then what?” In the realm of energy, the question could be a yardstick to measure the sustainability of fossil fuels versus renewables.
For example, the advent of hydrofracking has spurred a debate about its costs (i.e. more methane in the atmosphere which is a potent greenhouse gas) and its benefits (less CO2 than burning coal). But where does that leave the debate over what will happen when the relatively short supply of shale gas is depleted? And then what?
It’s an important question for a number of reasons. Fracking is being used in the debate over a freeze of renewable energy mandates in Ohio and other states that have shale gas to exploit. Also, as the “Sustainability and Place” report points out, in a world where conventional oil supply isn’t growing and prices are rising, fracking, tar sands and other unconventional methods of oil exploration are suddenly considered economical. Authored by five of the world’s most prominent ecologists, the report points out that the eastern seaboard and the southwestern United States and northwest Mexico will be increasingly caught in the net of this conundrum.
“Since so much of the economy depends upon the widespread availability of cheap oil for the production and distribution of goods, the onset of peak oil and the decline in net energy available to society has profound implications for overall societal well being. (Halland Day, 2009; Hall et al., 2009; Murphy and Hall, 2011).
Just as the first half of the oil age consisted of constantly increasing production, the second half of the oil age will consist of a continual rate of depletion that cannot be offset by new discoveries or low EROI (Energy Return on Investment) alternatives (Hall and Pascualli, 2012). This will cause price rises that accompany increases in demand (IMF, 2012). There is no substitute fuel source for conventional oil that is as plentiful, has as high an EROI, and can be scaled up in time to meet demand.”
As Zero Carbon Britain’s Paul Allen pointed out while in Cleveland, the answer to “and then what?” is powering down homes and mobility by scaling up energy efficiency and “de-carbonizing” our energy supply. The irony of not being able to meet the demand today is we either pay a little more now or a lot more later. If we are slow to respond, New York (not to mention island nations) will be more likely to get swamped by rising sea water. Phoenix will be more likely rendered uninhabitable from drought in the near future. The answer to “and then what?” is to build cities that make energy reduction the easy (and more enjoyable) way.
“Increasing scarcity and cost of energy will affect all of society but those cities and regions that can become less reliant on oil and other fossil fuels will be better off in the second half of the oil age.
For example, cities with electrified mass transit and multi-modal commuter transit options are better prepared than those with uni-modal, automobile dependent transit. Cities that rely heavily on oil for the import of goods and services across long distances will be affected disproportionately than cities located in areas that have less of a dependence on imports and can live, at least partially, off of the surplus production provided by rich local ecosystems.
In conclusion, energy scarcity will impact all areas of the country and all sectors of the economy. However, it will combine with other mega trends, especially climate change, to make some regions, such as the Southwest, highly unsustainable.”
The report maps where the most and least sustainable places to live in the future might be based on predictions of climate change impact. It shows that the Great Lakes has higher concentrations of “ecological services” because of a stable climate and relatively high annual precipitation. Predictions that climate change will produce 5-20% more rain in the Great Lakes likely in the form of rain, even in the winter, may increase flooding in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys (as was the case in 2010) . The costs for flooding and more extreme weather events in the Great Lakes and the east could easily exceed the $50 billion tally from Tropical Storm Sandy.
But the report also points out that many of the resource rich areas of the U.S. are in places with higher concentrations of poverty. In Cleveland’s case, the city could address both flooding and poverty by investing in a future as a place to grow food, and living closer to the land, even in existing urban areas. Cleveland and its suburbs have a new argument for looking at urban farming over vacant properties and for making it sustainable (which may include naturalizing historic waterways as the green supply lines. Historic waterways are the desire lines of nature, and they provide a natural storehouse for ecological services which will likely rise in the coming century).
This study calculates that certain places are more attractive because of predictions of “biophysical economy” growth. It shows that the U.S. requires more land because of its heavy diet of meat, and that a diet with more veggies can support more self-sustaining economies like local food.
These predictions, while dire if unheeded, could spell new opportunity for Cleveland and its suburbs. If Ohio unfreezes regional green infrastructure programs and doesn’t freeze its renewable energy policy, it will be in a position to protect its residents from increased flooding and to marshall the resources to return the growing power back to the land. Then, climate-induced change might be turned into a positive.

Heavy Precipitation and Climate Change
Extreme precipitation events have produced more rain (Figure 1) and become more common (Figure 2) since the 1950s in many regions around the world, including much of the United States. In particular, the Midwest and Northeast have exhibited  the strongest increases in the amount of rain falling in heavy precipitation events.
Scientists expect these trends to continue as the planet continues to warm. Warmer air can hold more water vapor. For each degree of warming, the air’s capacity for water vapor goes up by about 7 percent.  An atmosphere with more moisture can produce more intense precipitation events, which is exactly what has been observed, averaged over large areas of the Earth.
It is important to note that increases in heavy precipitation may not always lead to an increase in total precipitation over a season or over the year. Some climate models project a decrease in moderate rainfall, and an increase in the length of dry periods, which offsets the increased precipitation falling during heavy events.

Threats posed by Heavy Precipitation
The most immediate impact of heavy precipitation is the prospect of flooding as streams and rivers in the region overflow their banks. Since 2008, the United States has seen six floods costing at least $1 billion each, resulting in damaged property and infrastructure, agricultural losses, displaced families, and loss of life.

• In September 2013, Boulder, Colorado, received almost a year’s worth of rainfall (17 inches) in four days. The resulting flooding destroyed homes, shut down thousands of oil and gas wells, and damaged crops.
  
• In 2010, almost 20 inches of rain fell on Nashville, Tennessee, over three days. Losses in Nashville alone totaled over $1 billion.
  
• In 2008, floods struck the Midwest, with the worst impacts in Iowa and Wisconsin. Losses totaled $15 billion, mainly from property and agriculture.
  

In addition to flooding, heavy precipitation also increases the risk of landslides. When above-normal precipitation raises the water table and saturates the ground, slopes can lose their stability, causing a landslide. A particularly deadly landslide occurred in March 2014 in Washington state, where landslide risks can be relatively high. The heavy precipitation in the preceding weeks caused a landslide that buried 30 homes and killed at least 41 people
Excessive precipitation can also degrade water quality, harming human health and the ecosystem..  Storm water runoff, which often includes pollutants like heavy metals, pesticides, nitrogen, and phosphorus, can end up in lakes, streams, and bays, damaging aquatic ecosystems and lowering water quality for human uses. In the Chesapeake Bay, elevated levels of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus have led to algae outbreaks, which can lower the water oxygen content, killing clams, oysters and other aquatic life.
Many cities in the United States, such as New York and Philadelphia, use a combined sewer system, where both storm water and wastewater are mixed, treated, and released. Heavy precipitation events can overwhelm such systems, sending excess storm water and wastewater directly into the environment. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, overwhelmed sewer  systems discharged 3.45 billion gallons of untreated sewage into New York City’s rivers, bays and canals. Even in Washington D.C., where coastal flooding was not a factor, 475 million gallons of untreated sewage was discharged into local rivers, drastically reducing water quality.

How to Build Resilience
Communities can bolster their resilience and reduce the impacts of heavy precipitation by:

• Locating buildings and infrastructure on higher ground or areas that are less prone to flooding,  raising buildings, or using flood control infrastructure.
  
• Limiting the use of non-permeable surfaces like pavement and concrete in developed areas, or replacing pavement with “green infrastructure” that can reduce runoff during storms.
  
• Separating storm water systems from wastewater systems, using holding ponds, or increasing water treatment capacity to avoid sending untreated sewage into local waterways.
  

Purchasing flood insurance can help families and communities recover after a flood hits. However, recent floods have put the National Flood Insurance Program billions in debt, and further reforms are necessary if public flood insurance will continue to be available in the future.