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PostPosted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 2:43 pm
 


Groundbreaking climate research helps Edmonton plan future drainage needs

$1:
EDMONTON - Steven Chan has seen the future, and it looks stormy.

The senior city drainage assessment engineer has teamed with University of Alberta scientists on cutting-edge research to predict what impact climate change will have on local weather over the next 90 years.

While most climate studies cover wide geographic areas, Chan’s group crunched information dating back to the 1980s from 13 Edmonton rain gauges and other data so they could narrow down their work to the capital region.

They determined rising concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere mean average temperatures could go up between 2 C and 4 C in the next century, potentially nearly doubling the air’s moisture content.

Overall rainfall is going to increase, and they foresee more of the extreme cloudbursts that washed out roads, popped manhole covers and flooded thousands of Edmonton basements in 2004 and 2012.

“When the situation is perfect, we will have a storm, because we have a lot of moisture in the air,” Chan says.

“It will come heavier and more violently. This is what has happened in the last 30 years.”

These downpours usually cover limited portions of the city, so in earlier times they weren’t always recorded accurately — Edmonton’s only official rain gauge until the 1980s was at the recently closed City Centre Airport.

“If the current weather continues, today’s one-in-100-year storm may become one-in-50, 60 years from now … with the same amount of intensity,” he says, explaining this scenario assumes no reduction in current CO2 emissions.

“All the other things would increase, but not as much as the high-intensity (storm) curve.”

No other Canadian centre is doing this type of in-depth climate research at a city level.

The findings will help Edmonton develop standards for a sewer and drainage system appropriate to 2100, drainage planning director Todd Wyman says, calling the work groundbreaking.

Staff will use the information to assess risk and reach a balance between protecting people and property on the one hand, and not building unnecessary infrastructure on the other, Wyman says.

“Do we design today to account for (more frequent future downpours), and what’s the cost of designing for that future state?” he asks.

“Do we have to build these massive structures on the one-per-cent chance of it occurring, or 0.5-per-cent chance of it happening, or do we just live with it?”

In new neighbourhoods, roads are designed to carry water from overflowing sewers into storm ponds and away from homes, but this system doesn’t exist in many older communities.

The city is spending $146 million to upgrade drainage in southwest and west-end districts hit hard in July 2004, and expects improvements to avoid a repeat of the July 2012 south-side flooding will cost more than $160 million.

Moves to prevent more problems from thunderstorms in 2063 might include better overland drainage routes, and more or bigger dry ponds that turn from fields in good weather to reservoirs during heavy rain.

Some of this work could be done during scheduled overhauls to save money, but it could take a couple of years of discussions with developers and the public before specific options are put on the table.

Wyman admits this is probably the longest-term planning in which he has ever been involved.

“We’re trying to make sure it’s at a modern standard, ensuring water in those intense storms, we can manage safely. … I think I’m doing it for my grandkids.”


http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Groundbr ... story.html


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 4:23 pm
 


You are going to need one of these:
Image

and a pair of these:
Image

because


[B-o] R=UP


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 4:28 pm
 


$1:
“When the situation is perfect, we will have a storm, because we have a lot of moisture in the air,” Chan says.


This guy is a f*cking genius! Who would've ever made the connection between storms and moist air? F*cking amazing!





PostPosted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 4:58 pm
 


What happened to the fuckin drought that the Suzukiites claimed Alberta would be facing?

I remember the non stop yap about the pending Alberta dustbowl just before 2005 from all the left wing nuts.

We should start building a water pipeline to SoCal before we all drown. [B-o]


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 07, 2014 7:38 am
 


bootlegga bootlegga:
Groundbreaking climate research helps Edmonton plan future drainage needs


See, you can't use the term 'climate research' anymore without a certain crowd reading into it what they want to read.

They should have used 'Environmental Science'.


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 07, 2014 9:09 am
 


I'm in the wrong fucking business, should have been a climatologist. Just dig up old stats make up new ones, keep repeating the sky is falling and laugh all the way to the bank.


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 07, 2014 9:17 am
 


desertdude desertdude:
I'm in the wrong fucking business, should have been a climatologist. Just dig up old stats make up new ones, keep repeating the sky is falling and laugh all the way to the bank.


[huh]

What does that have to do with putting new rain gauges into newly developed areas of the city?


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 07, 2014 11:19 am
 


DrCaleb DrCaleb:
bootlegga bootlegga:
Groundbreaking climate research helps Edmonton plan future drainage needs


See, you can't use the term 'climate research' anymore without a certain crowd reading into it what they want to read.

They should have used 'Environmental Science'.


The usual suspects would bash that too, so it's a no win situation if you ask me. :wink:


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