On Our Wacky Weather, Or, Did The Olympic Torch Stop In Oklahoma?

As most of you are well aware, last week was a snow week in Washington, DC, and the odds are pretty good that there's something like that going on for you as well.

Our good friends in the conservative community have seized upon the moment as proof that this whole "global warming" thing is just a big scam perpetrated by the likes of Al Gore and his Legion Of Weather Nazis; their mission being only to deprive the American people of their Constitutional right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of a Ford Super Duty F-450 King Ranch Edition with the Heavy Service Suspension Package, Snow Plow Prep Package, Transmission Power Take-Off Provision, dual alternators, and supplemental cab heater.

To drive the point home, last week Senator James Inhofe's family went to the time and trouble to build a little igloo on the National Mall for our amusement.

But here's a question: just what has the weather been like in other places--for example, in my part of the world...or in the Senator's home State of Oklahoma?

It's a good question--and the Senator won't like the answer.

What's Up With The Olympics?

"As I said on the Senate floor on July 28, 2003, "much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear, rather than science." I called the threat of catastrophic global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," a statement that, to put it mildly, was not viewed kindly by environmental extremists and their elitist organizations..."

--Senator James Inhofe, January 4, 2005

Are you watching skiing and boarding events at the Olympics this week?

If you are, you're probably hearing about the difficult conditions, which are affecting operations to the point that, even as I'm writing this, events are being postponed in order to work around the conditions.

Basically what's happening is that lots of snow is falling on the upper portions of the Whistler Mountain complex, but at lower altitudes temperatures just above freezing are causing that same moisture to fall as rain, which turns snow to slush, or to hang in the air as fog, which is making it hard to judge ski performances and for competitors to see the runs.

Cypress Mountain Resort, the location of the Freestyle Skiing and Snowboard events, is also located at a relatively low altitude, with the result being similarly choppy conditions.

(It's predicted that a high pressure front currently moving up the West Coast will cause clear and cold nights for the next few days, freezing--and thereby preserving--the snowpack each evening. My guess: this won't improve conditions on the lower portions of the mountains; instead, expect the already rain-soaked and "concrete-like" snow to develop a gnarly crust of ice as it remelts and refreezes over each of the next several 24-hour cycles.)

"Would You Like To See The Video?"

This is much different than the weather last year--and I would know, as I live just about 200 miles south of the Olympic venues, in the foothills of the same mountains that wind their way along the North American Pacific Coast until they eventually find their way up to Alaska's Denali National Park.

This time last year I was shoveling snow every day, and the sides of my driveway had snow walls four feet high. This year, absolutely no snow at all.

Snoqualmie Pass, the local ski area, is about 25 miles farther east and about 2000 feet higher in altitude than my house, and I have some video that will help illustrate the difference between this year and normal years.

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) reports that only 171 inches of snow have fallen at the Pass through January 31st of this year, which is only about 40% of the five-year average.

Here's a WSDOT video that shows snow removal operations on the Pass. Pay attention to how much snow is on the roads, on the trees, and in the traffic median:





I was on the same road last Saturday, and in the beginning of the next video I want you to note that there is no new snow on the trees, and that there's also virtually no snow along the "Jersey barriers" on the side of the road. Near the end of the video the orange snow poles in the Pass' residential areas are only halfway buried, which is certainly not normal for this time of the year.





Here's another example of how unusual the weather has been: there are two routes that can get you between the Eastern Washington cities of Ellensburg and Yakima. One of them is US 97/I-82 (the freeway), the other is State Route (SR) 821, also known as the Canyon Road (the more twisty and turn-y, and therefore more fun, route).

For a variety of reasons related to local and regional geography Eastern Washington is colder than Western Washington, and this time of the year you'd expect the Canyon Road to have some combination of snow, slush, ice, or all of the above on the road, as well as some considerable accumulation of snow and ice on the canyon walls.

In other words...adventure driving.

In the next video you can see what the road looked like last Saturday. You'll see virtually no snow at all in the canyon, and lots of exposed basalt and brown grass.

(Fun Fact: basalt is associated with volcanic activity, which means pretty much everything you're seeing in this video was a part of one of the world's largest known and fastest flowing lava flows.)




(The blurring in the video is caused by rain on the lens.)

"Build An Igloo...That'll Distract "Em"

So that's how things are in the Pacific Northwest...but what about Oklahoma?



Oklahoma is a place with a drought history, and the worst times in that history were the 1930s, a time when conditions were so severe that the entire region (including parts of Texas, Colorado, Kansas, and other states besides) was known as the "Dust Bowl". The combination of poor farming practices and a four-year reduction in rain of about 25% caused more than 100 million acres of land to lose its topsoil, creating dust storms of legendary proportions.

"...Houses were shut tight, and cloth wedged around doors and windows, but the dust came in so thinly that it could not be seen in the air, and it settled like pollen on the chairs and tables, on the dishes..."

--John Steinbeck, "The Grapes of Wrath"

There is a new twist in that history playing out today: the same parts of Oklahoma that suffered the most damage in the 1930s are seeing "rainfall deficits" so severe in recent years that Senator Inhofe personally sent a letter to the Secretary of Agriculture in July of 2008 asking for...wait for it...well, you know what?

Let's let Senator Inhofe tell you what the letter said, courtesy of his own official Senate website:

"On Thursday, July 18, 2008, Senator Jim Inhofe welcomed Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer's announcement of an agricultural disaster designation for Cimarron, Texas, Beaver, Harper, Woodward, Ellis, Roger Mills, Dewey and Woods counties in Northwestern Oklahoma. Senator Inhofe, Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Congressman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) sent a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer in support of an agriculture disaster designation on July 3, 2008..."

Now here's the twist: according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who is responsible for knowing this stuff, there's been a recent alteration in the pattern of weather in the Midwest...a "climate change", if you will.

Normally you plant a crop in the spring, and you hope that you'll get enough rain to get that crop spouted and thriving; the idea being to have corn "as high as an elephant's eye", to give just one example.

What's been happening in the 21st Century is that the spring rains, in certain areas, were far less than expected, with an excess of rain falling at the end of the season. Some places were 70% or more below their normal rainfall amounts until significant amounts of rain began falling in July and August.

"This old dust storm it's a kickin' up cinders, this old dust storm cuttin' down my wheat, this old dust storm it pushed my shack down, but it didn't get me, girl, it can't stop me."

--Woody Guthrie, "Dust Can't Kill Me"

This is not good: if you're trying to grow grasses (including wheat or barley), the crops will have a hard time getting established (and they also don't harvest well if it's raining at harvest time); if it's corn or soybeans or something similar you're growing, those crops will yield a smaller number of smaller things like soybeans or ears of corn.

That means you need more and more irrigation and fertilizer to reap harvests of the same or smaller yields--which is putting even more pressure on farmers who were already struggling just to get by.

And in fact, the entire State of Oklahoma--not just the drought areas--is feeling the effects, with yields for many crops declining again in 2009, even compared to some very tough 2008 numbers.

NASA reports that from August of 2007 until August of 2008 the Oklahoma Panhandle experienced its driest weather since 1921, and you can see the impact on vegetation, thanks to the Terra satellite's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer.

And did I mention that parts of Oklahoma have been a bit warm lately?

If we look at the weather charts for Gage, Oklahoma (which is located just to the right of the Panhandle, and within the "disaster area"), from 2005 until today we see that 2006, 2008, and 2009 were all warmer than normal. 2010 has already been a warmer than average year, although not as much as 2006, 2007, 2008, or 2009.

So...add all this up, and what do you get?

Here's what: a Senator who denies that there is such a thing as "climate change" has the in-laws building an igloo on the National Mall...at a time when the city should be preparing for the National Cherry Blossom Festival.

Meanwhile, the Olympics are impacted by unusually low amounts of snowfall--and the Senator himself has recently been asking for emergency relief for his home State...because of a disastrous change in climate.

Of course, if I had to go out and explain to farmers in Cimarron County that there is no weather problem, and then promise to ask for aid for that weather problem, both at the same time, I might decide that hiding in my igloo was the smart move as well--and if he can keep it up just a bit longer, he may actually beat out Scott Brown for the tile of "First Truckin' Senator In History To Ever Traverse An Ice Road Up Denial"...which, as everyone knows, is not just a River in Egypt.

On Saving Louisiana, Or, Send Me Your Mud, Yearning To Be Free

Let’s begin today’s discussion with a quick thought experiment.

What is the single most important thing necessary to ensure the survival of the State of Louisiana?

Improved government administration?
More and better levees?
The success of the “Road Home” project?

I submit it is none of these.

The single most important factor determining the future of the State of Louisiana is mud.

That’s right, mud.

Were you aware that the entire State consists of mud? When you look at a geologic map, there is nothing to be seen but sedimentary deposits dating back to the Cambrian period.

And the mud, it is a-sinking.

Katrina took out more than 57 square miles of land in Plaquemines Parish alone. That former land is now the Gulf of Mexico.

The Army Corps of Engineers has maps of the Mississippi river from 1998. When you get to the page, click on map 141. What you see is a portion of Plaquemines Parish. (Here’s the same place on Google Maps.)

Notice almost the entire map area consists of water, canals, and marsh. There’s only two narrow strips of solid ground evident. Now let’s pull out a bit. There’s just about nothing in the image but sinking ground. Now pull out just a little bit further, and guess what-there’s New Orleans.

This was the area of Louisiana most affected by Katrina.

It’s now time for you to meet Professor Oliver A. Houck. His essay “Can We Save New Orleans?”, published in the Tulane Law Journal, will be central to the remainder of this conversation, and I would encourage you in the strongest terms to take the time to read the document.

Here are some of the issues he brings to light:

--There is no consensus on what is to be done-should the emphasis be on maximizing the amount of developable land; or should the emphasis be on maximizing opportunities for natural processes to replenish the bayous? These are two mutually exclusive goals, and Houck suggests development is winning.

--The Federal government is responsible for maintaining navigation on the Mississippi, but flood control is managed locally. As a result of this and the huge amounts of money that are spread around through levee and other water control project construction, politics has more influence on the management process than science and inter-jurisdictional coordination.

--Environmental pollution-especially fertilizer runoffs-kill the marsh grasses that hold the soil together. As a result, the process of saving Louisiana starts in South Dakota, and is therefore a national, not just a State problem.

--It is easier to calculate the cost-benefit of industrial and commercial activity than the cost-benefit of saving lives-and safety advocates have fewer lobbyists.

--Money spent now, on non-development rights, for example, will be cheaper than money spent later on reconstruction or remediation.

And the most important of all:

--It’s the constant movement of silt down the river that makes it possible for there to be a Louisiana-and America’s history of “taming” the Mississippi has nearly brought that process to a stop. The River carried 400 million tons a year of silt 150 years ago, Houck reports, and today carries only 80 million. Without that “new” land to deposit in the Delta, there is no way to offset the erosion to the Gulf of Mexico.

That’s not the only reason the State is sinking, however. Pumping drinking water from aquifers has an impact, and the expansion of the ocean caused by global warming does, too. Even the weight of the levees themselves on the soft soil is affecting the situation.

Professor Houck, being a “fix-it” kind of analyst, has offered a ten-point prescription for Louisiana recovery. Here’s the “Reader’s Digest Condensed Version”:

1) Draw the map-in other words, there needs to be a set of decisions made regarding exactly where humans will be allowed to control the land, and where the river will have its say.
2) With a new map, reconsider the projects-Houck reminds us that Katrina changed everything, and that projects already designed or underway are probably the wrong solutions to today’s problems.
3) “Free the Mississippi 400 million”-open dams upriver to allow the 400 million tons of silt to do its thing downriver.
4) Free the rivers-the logical extension of point 3. Open the levees appropriately, and let the rivers do their thing.
5) Cut the upstream fertilizers-we discussed this above-fertilizer kills grass, and that kills land. This is where parties outside Louisiana have to step up to the plate-the EPA, the Corps of Engineers, the various States, and maybe even private actors such as the Nature Conservancy.
6) Heal the marsh-if grass holds the mud in place, then grass we must grow. Professor Houck uses a farming analogy-one in which Louisianans would essentially become “land farmers”.
7) Quit making it worse-dredging and filling for canals and subdivisions is the enemy. As we said above, prevention is cheaper than mitigation.
8) Make room for Nature-consolidate human development within protected areas to create room for natural restoration to work.
9) Dare to think retreat-Houck advocates completely removing residential development from threatened areas, through buyouts. He makes the argument that businesses can be sustained, however.
10) Global warming is real-Professor Houck suggests denial here just makes the problem much, much worse.

We have already seen the consequences of our desire to develop every inch of shoreline, and not just in Louisiana, but all along the Gulf Coast. And we already are beginning to understand that this is truly a national problem.

But if we hope to keep South Louisiana as a functioning economy or even as an above water piece of real estate, we better start talking about national solutions that help Nature’s solutions.

On The Costs Of Climate Change, Or, Florida Bets The State

It is always a surprise when you begin to write one story and end up writing another, and that is the situation we have today.

Originally this was to be a story set in the future, but it turns out the future is now.

Here’s the deal: while watching the Super Bowl (love the mouse commercial!), I was considering the economic consequences of a flooded Miami, seeing as the ocean level is projected to rise over the next century, and Florida isn’t.

Specifically, I was thinking about what will happen to the economy of the state when you can no longer transfer real estate because the property is uninsurable.

In my mind, there would be a sort of tipping point where the State would have to look for outside assistance for their collapsing insurance situation, perhaps even seeking some sort of Federal bailout.

As it turns out, this is a story set right in the here and now. Since 2005, Florida home and business owners have had a major problem either finding or keeping property/casualty insurance.

The problem has become so serious that the State has initiated a major expansion of “last-resort insurer” programs that have existed since 1971.

By “expansion”, I mean the State has voluntarily made itself liable, through the Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, and other provisions of Florida law, for $36 billion of damages in the event of a single major storm.

How much of the State’s money might potentially be at risk?

The Florida Department of revenue reports that 2005’s assessed value for the entire State’s real estate is about $1.6 trillion, and in fact the State’s Chief Financial Officer, Alex Sink, had to talk the Legislature out of accepting unlimited liability for the entire amount.

There are provisions of Florida law that will seem unusual to many of you.

Here’s just one example:

If the State’s Citizens Property Insurance Corp. has a bad year policyholders of other companies (and other types of insurance-including auto insurance) can be billed by the State to make up the difference. In fact this is occurring right now, and will for at least the next ten years; under a deal included in the most recent insurance reforms.

The Citizens Property Insurance Corp. intends to build up the $36 billion they need to cover this liability in a reserve fund, but at the moment that fund only contains $2 billion, which means $34 billion of premium surplus must be collected from Florida ratepayers before a major storm hits if this is to work.

If a storm hits first, the State intends to issue bonds to cover the difference; and of course, if there is a major storm every 2 or 3 years, the hit to the taxpayers will be potentially quite severe.

But as I mentioned before, this was not the story I set out to tell.

This was supposed to be a story of rising sea levels, 1200 miles of shoreline, a Super Bowl city that pretty much sits less than 15 feet above sea level, dikes that might cost $25 million a mile, and the inevitability of an eventual tipping point.

Instead, we find a story of policyholders drowning now in a flood of premium increases, tax hikes, a slowdown in property value appreciation that may have much larger effects on the state’s economy than we yet recognize, and a State willing to bet it all that they can find a way out of the path of disaster.

Good luck to you Florida, but remember-you’re betting against Nature, and in the end, the house always wins.