21st Century Floods
Frequency change in extreme rainfall at 21st Century end compared to 2000-2013 average (credit: NCAR)
In the Biblical story of Noah, "the rains fell upon the Earth for 40 days and 40 nights" (Genesis 7:12) and swept away everything except Noah and the animals in his ark. A report from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Colorado, describes floods of Noah perportions may become a modern reality rather than a historical narrative.
According to the weather analysis published in Nature Climate Change, extreme storms could increase five-fold by the end of this century. By then, the number of summertime thunderstorms that produce extreme downpours could increase by more than 400 percent along the Gulf Coast, Atlantic Coast, and the southern USA. This means a storm that drops 2 inches of rain today would be likely to drop nearly 3.5 inches in the future. Andres Prein, lead author of the study, noted:
"These are huge increases. Imagine the most intense thunderstorm you typically experience in a single season. In the future, parts of the U.S. could expect to experience five of those storms in a season, each with an intensity as strong or stronger than current storms."
Using supercomputers to develop the new weather and rainfall models the NCAR researchers said:
"in today's climate, storms with the highest rainfall intensity form when daily temperatures are between 68-77F and with high atmospheric moisture. We found that storms may continue to intensify up to temperatures of 86F because of increasing humid atmospheres. The result would lead to much more intense storms."
Extreme weather everywhere has been widespread already and the events are showing us the future is here now. Unfortunately, Noah won't be around this time to help us with a big ark. WHB