![]() And the ongoing changes in the climate have huge implications for public policy, as Lind writes: Still, considering the probability of massive flooding or high winds is critical for insuring homes or designing roads and bridges. So terms like “500-year flood” or “100-year storm” are better understood as a shorthand for the scale of an event rather than its likelihood. That’s why some scientists describe climate change’s impacts on extreme weather as “ loading the dice.” As average temperatures go up, air can hold on to more moisture, and heavy rain events have been dumping more water in recent years. Hurricane Harvey led to record flooding in Houston last year, but it was also the city’s third 500-year flood in as many years. In fact, as the climate changes, these extreme events are occurring with increasing frequency. ![]() It doesn’t mean that the last time the region saw a flood like this was 1,000 years ago, or that we won’t see a similar event in the near future. (Hydrologists actually prefer the term “ recurrence interval.”)Ī quantity of rain like what we saw from Florence, for example, is a 1,000-year event because it has a 0.1 percent chance of occurring in any given year. As Vox’s Dara Lind explained last year, when scientists invoke the X-year classification, they’re talking not about history but about probability. Such massive rainfall events have (until lately) been uncommon, and all the talk of 100-year and 500-year events can be a bit confusing. The resulting floods broke records and sent animal waste and toxic coal ash spilling out of containment structures and into surrounding waters. #Florence /tRhNl7vobs- NWS September 20, 2018 Florence analysis confirms extreme 3-day rainfall amounts exceeded 0.1% probability event expected in given year, or “1000-year” event.
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