The Great Flood of 1862 could be repeated
- New research shows that climate change increases the likelihood of a major “catastrophe” in California, similar to the Great Flood of 1862.
- That disaster, which followed more than 40 days of continuous rain, resulted in the deaths of 4,000 people.
- The floodwaters of that disaster created an “inland sea” 300 miles long and 60 miles wide in some places.
A new study is raising concerns about Floods due to climate change drop a large amount of water in California suffers from drought – a seemingly unlikely scenario has actually happened before.
While intense droughts, wildfires and earthquakes are often major concerns across the West, study published on friday warns of another crisis lurking in California: “Megafloods“It notes that climate change is increasing the risk of flooding that could engulf cities and displace millions across the state. It indicates a month-long extreme storm can bring rain – in some places, more than 100 inches – to hundreds of miles of California.
While the script might sound like something out of a movie, it’s happened before.
California experienced severe flooding throughout the 20th Century, including in 1969, 1986, and 1997. But floods that occurred further back in the past – the Great Flood of 1862 – are being held by scientists. Research keeps an eye on as the threat to California grows.
Although it occurred 160 years ago, the flood – considered a “superstorm” because its historic rainfall covered huge swaths of the state – shows that the threat is not merely theoretical. .
In fact UCLA researchers study “megafloods” says that such storms usually occur every 100-200 years.
Researchers are sounding the alarm because floods of this magnitude today would have a far more devastating impact in a state that is now the nation’s most populous.
And the Great Flood of 1862 also happened before the drought.
How bad was the Great Flood of 1862?
The intense rainstorms that hit central California “virtually unabated” from Christmas Eve 1861 until January 1862, The American Annals of Science in a 2013 story on “The Coming Megastorms.”
The flow of the water created “a huge inland sea … an area at least 300 miles long”, leaving Central and southern California underwater for up to six months, the magazine said. UCLA researchers write in study their recent flood risk.
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Scientist William Brewer (author of “Up and Down California in 1860-1864”) wrote in a letter to his brother, cited by Scientific American. “All the roads in the middle of the state are impassable; so all correspondence is cut off. The telegraph also doesn’t work clearly. In the Sacramento Valley for some distance, the peaks of the The power poles are all under the water.”
An estimated 4,000 people died and a third of the state’s property was destroyed, including a quarter of the 800,000 livestock that drowned or starved to death. news site SFGate earlier this year.
The Great Flood of 1862 would have been much worse if it had happened today
The 1862 underwater site is now home to more people than it was then – it’s home to some of California’s fastest-growing cities including Bakersfield and Sacramento.
Back then, the state’s population was about 500,000, but today it’s closer to 40 million. “A similar event will happen again, in areas of cities like Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno and Los Angeles,” said researchers who worked on the flood risk study. will be submerged even with the growing number of reservoirs, dikes and bypasses.” say in one Press Release.
They say the resulting disaster will cause an estimated $1 trillion in damage, the largest disaster in the history of the world.
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Daniel Swain, a UCLA climate scientist and a co-author of the study, said the impacts would extend beyond central and southern California. “Every major population center in California will be affected immediately — possibly parts of Nevada and other nearby states,” he said.
Major highways such as Interstate 5, which runs along the Pacific coast from Canada to Mexico, and I-80, which bisects California through San Francisco and Sacramento, will likely be closed for weeks or weeks month, he said.
The ripple effect will affect the global economy and supply chains.
What causes megafloods?
Atmospheric rivers are long streams of water vapor that form about a mile from Earth. Michael Dettinger, hydrologist with the United States Geological Survey, and Lynn Ingram, University of California, Berkeley, professor of earth and planetary sciences, in the journal Scientific American.
When one crosses the Pacific Ocean and hits the Sierra Nevada, “it is forced up, cools, and condenses into heavy rainfall,” they wrote.
Warming temperatures are making extreme storms occur more often – with more flows, the researchers say. In a 2018 study, Swain estimated there was a 50-50 chance that a major flood the size of the Great Flood of 1862 would happen again in 2060, Popular Science Reported. “This is basically going to be a wetland that is now home to millions of people,” he said.
New research shows that climate change has doubled the likelihood of extreme storms, and each additional level of global warming increases the likelihood of a super typhoon.
Research is ongoing on the potential impacts of floods and how to prepare for them. It’s important to keep the issue in the minds of Californians, Swain said, because droughts, wildfires and earthquakes get all the attention.
“There is a possibility of wildfires every year in California, but a lot of years go by when there’s no major flood news,” he said. “Everybody forgot about it.”
Follow Mike Snider on Twitter: @mikesnider.