Researchers have known for some time that flooding due to atmospheric rivers could cost a lot of money, but until our study no one had quantified these damages.
NASA Earth Observatory Helpful and harmful In wet conditions, they can cause damaging floods and debris flows, wreaking havoc on local economies.Īfter an atmospheric river event that caused severe flooding in Chile, sediment washed down from hillsides into the Itata River can be seen flowing up to 50 kilometers from the coast. In dry conditions, atmospheric rivers can replenish water supplies and quench dangerous wildfires. By the late 1990s atmospheric scientists had found that over 90% of the world’s moisture from the tropics and subtropics was transported to higher latitudes by similar systems, which they named “ atmospheric rivers.”
In the 1960s meteorologists coined the phrase “Pineapple Express” to describe storm tracks that originated near Hawaii and carried warm water vapor to the coast of North America. They have meandered through the sky for millions of years, transporting water vapor from the equator toward the poles. Damages in Sonoma County alone were estimated at over US$100 million.Įvents like these have drawn attention in recent years, but atmospheric rivers are not new. The Russian River crested at 45.4 feet – 13.4 feet above flood stage.įor the fifth time in four decades, the town of Guerneville was submerged under the murky brown floodwaters of the lower Russian River. Just north of San Francisco Bay, in Sonoma County’s famed wine country, the storm dumped over 21 inches of rain. 27, 2019, an atmospheric river propelled a plume of water vapor 350 miles wide and 1,600 miles long through the sky from the tropical North Pacific Ocean to the coast of Northern California. And atmospheric rivers are predicted to grow longer, wetter and wider in a warming climate. We found that while many of these events are benign, the largest of them cause most of the flooding damage in the western U.S. Recently I led a team of researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Army Corps of Engineers in the first systematic analysis of damages from atmospheric rivers due to extreme flooding.
My research combines economics and atmospheric science to measure damage from severe weather events.
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