Is Increased Flooding in Houston an Effect of Climate Change?

I don't think streets can flood without streets, so I think it is an issue of human civil engineering more so than AGW.

Think of it like forest fires. If you spend a century putting out and suppressing forest fires, you have essentially spent a century adding fuel for forest fires.

 

You are such a sad, pretentious twit.

 

You simply don't know what you're talking about. You seriously think there is a lot of oil drilling in Houston? You're simply ignorant. Educate yourself.

 

Where did I say it is occurring now? Ignoramus. Educate yourself, pseudo-Rice graduate.

 

Post 13 in this thread.

pwn3d

 

What a sad example for those toiling on the campus of Rice.

"Houston has always flooded, Judo. If it has gotten worse, it is likely due to all the oil and water/drinking water pumped out of the ground, lowering how high parts of the city are above sea level."


Your level of reading comprehension has reached new depths. Of course, you have always seen what you wish to see. Reality is a construct that doesn't exist in your "universe."

 

Pepper your angus, Deckard. You're emotional and flailing about. You're also being intellectually dishonest. You need to provide the FULL context.

Judoka's first post in this thread stated "It does seem like there have been more major flooding events in Houston in recent years and am just wondering myself if this is an area here climate change is tangible."

The key words being "in recent years". So your point around oil being pumped out of the ground has to be referencing "recent years".

drops mic...

 

What evidence is there to disprove the Flying Spaghetti Monster is God?

http://www.venganza.org

 

I think it's dangerous to look at events like this and associate it with climate change until there has at least been some kind of correlations establish. What are the rainfall amounts in Houston the last 20 years compared to the 20 years before that.

 

Why do anything like that?

 

It seems like we have less rain, less often but then we'll have freak out bursts of massive amounts of rain and our drainage systems cannot take it.

 

You realize that is a fake article???

Why don't you post how when it gets cold it proves climate change ISN"T happening haha.

You are so hypocritical. Fake articles. Do you not have integrity?

 

I mean, at this point I don't know what to say:

 

I won't be around to see it, but Houston will need to borrow the superb technology of the Dutch by the end of this century to keep Houston and the area dry. We'll need dikes, folks, as well as the other amazing things that they use to manipulate water in the Netherlands. I've toured some of the major projects and it's enough to blow ones mind. Governmental agencies at all levels should start long range planning now, in my humble opinion.

 

How can u even tell?

 

It is and it isn't. We live on a flat coastal plain next to a huge body of warm water. The area has gotten hue amounts of rainfall since it emerged from the sea. But as more energy is retained in the atmosphere, the potential for incremental energy exchanges, aka: weather, increases. Warmer air holds more moisture, warmer ocean basins create more and stronger cool front pushes from the poles as energy (pressure) levels flow from high to low (basic thermodynamics).

Also,when you want to calculate the amount of water you design drainage for you use the equation Q=CIA where I equals the rainfall intensity (usually using the 100 year storm estimates) A is the area you are draining and C equals the coefficient of run-off or how fast the water runs off the area and how much sinks in. When you cover a large percentage of the area with hard surfaces like roads and roofs the C factor goes up really fast. All the water that might have sunk in to the ground or aquifers runs directly to the low points, drainage ditches and roadways used as drainage.

On a personal level it fairly easy to avoid disaster: don't move next to a bayou without adequate detention storage and don't drive during the event. On a city-wide scale, we are just continually f***ed. Developers fight the detention requirements at every step because it uses land area without profit, they also want to move water off of their development as fast as possible to retain their values but that just screws the people down stream from them (watch the fight between Metro National TRIZ and the people who live in the Memorial area)

We are the bayou city and bayous are creeks and rivers without enough slope to move water.

 

Green roofs wont do much. All you would be doing is absorbing a fraction of the water at the expense of adding weight to the building. I personally wouldn't want to continuously add and lose weight to my roof simply to absorb water runoff. I do see the value in adding green to the environment.

The concrete surface area is a two fold problem: The first is, obviously, the concrete prevents absorption of the water. The second issue is the concrete area is now considered usable real estate that needs to be protected from flooding.

 

500 year flood? Nah it must be a coincidence

 

A single event means nothing.

# of events over a period of time. IOW, trends. But if that's all you are looking at and making decision based on it, it would be after the fact.

We have the power of prediction and if we don't use it to our advantages, we are fools.