Legendary fluvial geomorphologist Reds Wolman once said “Floods come from too much water,” and that’s the phenomenon distilled to its core essence. But this bit of wisdom doesn’t give us much to go on if we want to understand what creates floods or why some areas are more flood-prone than …
It’s been about a year since I’ve updated this blog, but it’s not that I didn’t have anything to say. Instead, members of the Watershed Hydrology lab were doing so many great things that I just didn’t do a good job of stopping to write them down here. But below, …
August 30th: Harvey reminds us that we should treat climate change as we treat other public health threats. That’s the argument in this New York Times op-ed: Harvey, the storm that humans helped cause. August 29th: The most sobering hot-take on Harvey is by Eric Holthaus: Harvey is what climate …
Cross-posted at Highly Allochthonous It all began at the end of February, when I travelled to La Crosse, Wisconsin to the Upper Midwest Stream Restoration Symposium, which was a really stimulating and vital mix of academics, consultants, and government folks all interested in improving the state of the science and …
Cross-posted at Highly Allochthonous It’s been quite a week. My home in northeastern Ohio got off lightly from “Superstorm” Sandy, compared to places closer to the Atlantic seaboard and in the Caribbean. But still, over 250,000 people lost power due to high wind, especially in Cuyahoga and Lorain counties along …
Cross-posted at Highly Allochthonous There’s nothing particularly deterministic about starting a new year on January 1st. Our wall calendars happen to do so because of the circumstances of history. For hydrologists in the northern hemisphere, January 1st is not a great time to declare one year dead and a new …
Jefferson, A. 2011. Seasonal versus transient snow and the elevation dependence of climate sensitivity in maritime mountainous regions, Geophysical Research Letters, 38, L16402, doi:10.1029/2011GL048346. Abstract: In maritime mountainous regions, the phase of winter precipitation is elevation dependent, and in watersheds receiving both rain and snow, hydrologic impacts of climate change …
Wow! I won the “strange quark” (2nd place) award in a science writing contest, hosted by Three Quarks Daily, for blogging about the Mississippi River, floods, levees, and the illusion of control. As I wrote in the comments at 3QD: Wow! I never thought I’d actually win something for writing …
Cross-posted at Highly Allochthonous Got flood fatigue yet? Too bad, because the wet weather and the high water keeps coming. Here is a quick round up of the notable flood-related news of the week. Mississippi River My post, ‘Levees and the illusion of flood control‘, has been nominated for the …
Cross-posted at Highly Allochthonous One week ago today (28 May 2011), I had the chance to explore the lingering flooding along the Mississippi River and its tributary Big Muddy River in southern Illinois. The area was long past its crest; it is upriver of Cairo and the Birds Point Floodway. …