Over two feet of rain fell in 12 hours

 Hands up those who still think climate change is not a problem.

From CNN

Extreme, climate-fueled rainfall broke records this week in a part of Italy known for its rain and an area in Oman not known for rain at all.

On Monday, a series of storms put on the parking brakes over northwestern Italy, unleashing rainfall rates never before seen in all of Europe after over 29 inches (742 mm) of rain fell in just 12 hours. In Oman, a rare tropical cyclone dumped years' worth of rainfall, bringing deadly floods to the desert landscape that rarely sees much rain in an entire year.

Italy's Genoa province, known for its natural beauty and rugged coastlines, became the epicenter for the most recent extreme rains.

A series of slow-moving storms stalled in the region Sunday into Monday, dumping over 36 inches (925 mm) of rain in the town of Rossiglione, about 60 miles (100 km) southwest of Milan.

For some context, 36 inches is roughly equivalent to the average rainfall one would expect in Seattle in a year. It would take London an average of 15 months to tally such rainfall. Dozens had to be rescued after reports of mudslides and flooding dotted the landscape, leading a bridge to collapse in the town of Quiliano.

Wet weather is not uncommon in this part of Italy, as the region averages over 50 inches (1,200 mm) of rain per year. However, the storm dropped nearly 30 inches (750 mm) in just 12 hours, setting a new European mark for the highest 12-hour rainfall on record, according to climatologist and extreme weather expert Maximiliano Herrera.

In the nearby town of Cairo Montenotte, about 20 miles (32 km) west of Rossiglione, weather records continued to fall by the wayside on Monday. A 6-hour deluge unlike any ever observed in Italy brought nearly 20 inches (500 mm) of rainfall, besting the national 6-hour record for all of Italy.

Just a few miles to the east, the mind-bending rainfall also inundated the nearby town of Vicomorasso, after over 7 inches (180 mm) fell in just one hour, according to FloodList, an organization that documents significant flood events from around the world.

By comparison, remnants of Hurricane Ida swamped Central Park in early September after a record of 3.15 inches fell in just 1-hour, breaking the previous 1-hour record set just 11 days earlier when Tropical Storm Henri soaked the region.

Less than 2 days earlier and a little over 3,000 miles to the southeast, Cyclone Shaheen made landfall in far northern Oman with winds just shy of a Category 1 hurricane.

The storm drenched the normally parched city of Al Khaburah with over 14 inches (300 mm) of rainfall in a matter of hours, according to The Times of Oman.

This is the equivalent of more than 3 years' worth of rainfall in about 24 hours. In the nearby town of Suwaiq, more than a years' worth of rain fell in just 6 hours. The storm produced a remarkable 4.57 inches (116 mm) of rainfall in a 6-hour span, exceeding what it typically sees in an entire year, according to Oman's Meteorological Department.

The significant increase in heavy rainstorms observed around the world is becoming more evident.

As the global temperatures rise, extreme precipitation events will drop more water, according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change. The report highlighted that for every 1 degree Celsius (1.8°F) increase in air temperatures, the atmosphere can retain roughly 7% more water vapor.

In the US, the summer of 2021 exemplified this as tropical systems such as Ida and Henri rewrote the record books several times over in a span of weeks.

In August, Tennessee shattered its previous state record after 17 inches of rain fell in the town of McEwen in just 24 hours. A little over a week later, remnants of Hurricane Ida brought torrents of rainfall across the northeastern, setting daily and all-time records from New Jersey to New England.

These extreme rainfall rates are becoming more common because of human-caused global warming, scientists say. According to the UN's report on climate change, "the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation events have increased since the 1950s over most land area."

Deadly flash floods also made headlines around the world this summer, including deadly floods in July across Western Europe, after several months' worth of rain fell in hours, turning city streets in Belgium and Germany into torrents of water.

Heavy rainfall also caused floods in Central China in July that led to over 300 deaths. Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of 12 million people, was one of the hardest-hit areas, with entire neighborhoods submerged and passengers trapped in flooded subway cars.

A view of a river near Savona in Northern Italy, swallowed after heavy rains in the region, on Oct. 4, 2021. Heavy rain battered the northwest region of Italy bordering France, causing flooding and mudslides on Monday in several places.

A compelling reason to go electric

Pollution over Milan in northern Italy, which has had higher coronavirus death rates than the rest of the country. Photograph: Claudio Furlan/LaPresse/Zuma Press/Rex/Shutterstock via The Guardian

One wonders if this evidence will persuade people to accelerate the switch to electric cars?  And away from coal?  Of course, some people will never be persuaded that clean air matters more than fossil fuel profits, but the covid-19 crisis might just suggest to all but the purblind that we need to do something.

From The Guardian.

Air pollution is linked to significantly higher rates of death in people with Covid-19, according to analysis.

The work shows that even a tiny, single-unit increase in particle pollution levels in the years before the pandemic is associated with a 15% increase in the death rate. The research, done in the US, calculates that slightly cleaner air in Manhattan in the past could have saved hundreds of lives.

Given the large differences in toxic air levels across countries, the research suggests people in polluted areas are far more likely to die from the coronavirus than those living in cleaner areas. The scientists said dirty air was already known to increase the risk of acute respiratory distress syndrome, which is extremely deadly and a cause of Covid-19-related deaths, as well as other respiratory and heart problems.

A separate report from scientists in Italy notes that the high death rates seen in the north of the country correlate with the highest levels of air pollution.

The study, by researchers at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston,analysed air pollution and Covid-19 deaths up to 4 April in 3,000 US counties, covering 98% of the population. “We found that an increase of only 1μg/m3 in PM2.5 [particles] is associated with a 15% increase in the Covid-19 death rate,” the team concluded.

A small increase in exposure to particle pollution over 15-20 years was already known to increase the risk of death from all causes, but the new work shows this increase is 20 times higher for Covid-19 deaths.

“The results are statistically significant and robust,” they said. The study took account of a range of factors, including poverty levels, smoking, obesity, and the number of Covid-19 tests and hospital beds available. They also assessed the effect of removing from the analysis both New York City, which has had many cases, and counties with fewer than 10 confirmed Covid-19 cases.

“Previous work showed that air pollution exposure dramatically increased the risk of death from [the] Sars [coronavirus] during the 2003 outbreak,” said Rachel Nethery, one of the Harvard team. “So we think our results here are consistent with those findings.”

The authors said the results highlighted the need to keep enforcing existing air pollution regulations, and that failure to do so could potentially increase the Covid-19 death toll. They noted that the US Environmental Protection Agency suspended its enforcement of environmental laws on 26 March.

The US has the third highest death toll to date, after Italy and Spain. A second study focusing on Italy, published in the journal Environmental Pollution, said: “We conclude that the high level of pollution in northern Italy should be considered an additional co-factor of the high level of lethality recorded in that area.”

It noted that northern Italy was one of Europe’s most polluted areas and that the death rate reported up to 21 March in the northern Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions was about 12%, compared with 4.5% in the rest of Italy.

“It is well known that pollution impairs the first line of defence of upper airways, namely cilia, thus a subject living in an area with high levels of pollutant is more prone to develop chronic respiratory conditions and [is more vulnerable] to any infective agent,” it said.

Medical scientists warned in mid-March that air pollution exposure could make Covid-19 worse. Early research on Covid-19 had suggested that the weakened lungs of smokers and former smokers made them more susceptible to the virus.

While lockdowns have caused air pollution to fall dramatically, a comprehensive global review published in 2019 found that over long periods air pollution may be damaging every organ and virtually every cell in the human body.

[Read more here]


We could dramatically improve air pollution over the next 5 to 10 years by closing down remaining coal power stations and disallowing the sale of pure petrol/diesel cars, lorries and buses.  We don't even have to insist that all new cars be 100% electric.  Ordinary hybrids, such as the Toyota Corolla, have 40-50% less fuel consumption, and therefore fewer emissions, than petrol/diesel cars, and they cost only $2000 more than ICE alternatives.  And in most major economies,  new renewable generation is cheaper than new coal, and in many countries, cheaper than existing, fully depreciated and paid-off coal.

Let this be a wake-up call to all of us who would like to postpone or slow the transition to a low-carbon economy.  It isn't just about preventing further global warming, which is important enough.  It's also about saving millions of lives.

Definite peak in new cases in Italy

In my previous post, I thought that new cases in Italy might have peaked.  The latest data confirm that they have.  Data and chart from John Hopkins Uni.  The JHU data are one day out of date, and I have drawn a gold diamond on the chart showing the latest data point (Friday 27th).  New cases rose 4,401 on Friday.  At its peak on the 21st March, new cases totalled 6,600. 

Key takeaway: lockdown works.  Deaths are still rising in Italy, because they lag behind new infections by two weeks.  New infections in turn lag behind total lockdown by 2 weeks.  The maths is simple: each infected person goes on to infect 2 or 3 others, unless they are at a wedding or party or church service.  This is why cases before lockdown were rising exponentially, i.e., were doubling every 2 or 3 days.  If we can cut the number of people each infected person infects to below one, the virus eventually dies out.  The lower it is below one, the quicker the die out. 

The virus is likely to return as lockdown restrictions are relaxed.  But this time we'll be ready for it, with more remote (infra-red) thermometers, more test kits, greater knowledge.  And in a year or so, one or more vaccines.

As regards other countries, it looks to me as if cases have peaked in Switzerland, *may* have peaked in Spain, but in all other countries the number of new cases is still accelerating.  In the US, insanely rapidly.  That country is paying the price for a dysfunctional government and a deeply divided polity.

Source: JHU.  Click to enlarge.
Gold diamond shows Friday's new cases

New cases in Italy may have peaked

From John Hopkins Uni Covid webpage.  This is tentative evidence that lockdown works.  Without lockdown every infected person goes on to infect 2 or 3 others, sometimes more—at a party or meeting, for example.  But if we can reduce that rate to below 1, i.e., each person infects fewer than one other person, the disease will die away.  This is the first peak in this series—the "peak" on the 13th (click chart to enlarge) represents two days' worth of data, so the average of those two days is lower.

To definitively label 21st March as the peak I'd like another two days of declines.  But it's looking good.

Covid--an absolute disaster is brewing in the USA

From ZME Science:

There is no denying it: Italy is not an unfortunate exception. Soon enough, most countries will face a similar struggle.

The US now has the largest growth rate of COVID-19 cases in the world, doubling approximately every 2 days. What initially seemed to be a relatively slow growth rate was, apparently, directed only by a lack of tests — as soon as people were getting tested, the number of cases surged. It is becoming clear that sooner rather than later, the US will face a similar strain to Italy’s — and even Italy has not seen the peak of the outbreak.

The simple chart above shows that the rate of infection in the US is accelerating much faster than the one in Italy.

Of course, there is an argument to be made — first, about the number of asymptomatic cases. We know that a number of cases are asymptomatic and people might not even know they have the disease at all. We don’t know how many there are, but this is an important uncertainty. Then, there’s a discussion about the number of tests — most countries are only testing people who are already sick, but outside of Asia, mass testing has not really been deployed.

These are both serious sources of uncertainty, and there are others as well. But even so, there is nothing to suggest that Italy is the worst-case scenario.

Italy 2025 coal phase out.

Source

France, UK, The Netherlands and Canada have all stated that they will phase out coal sometime over the next 10 to 15 years.  In the USA, despite opposition from the Republicans, coal is being progressively phased out, too.

It's not just pollution and global warming which are driving this move out of coal (though they are important), it's cost.   It's hard to believe there will be any coal-fired power stations in 2030, except in China, India, Vietnam, South Africa and a few others, and even there they will produce relatively small percentages of total electricity.  By 2040 they too will be gone.

 [Read more here (paywall)]

Spain & Italy both recovering

Euro recovery is getting stronger, and spreading through the whole region.

[Charts from Macquarie Bank]