Ten Years of Weather History in Three Minutes

NOAA GEOS-12 satellite was decommissioned on August 16 after 3788 days in service. Here is ten years showing some of the planets extreme weather during this period.

Sudan deadly floods affect 300,000 people - WHO

More than 300,000 people across Sudan have been affected by floods that have killed nearly 50 people in August, the World Health Organization has said.

It said the region around the capital Khartoum had been particularly badly hit and was experiencing the worst floods in 25 years.

One of the major risks to health was the collapse of more than 53,000 latrines, the WHO added.

A UN official in Sudan described the situation as "a huge disaster".

In a report, the WHO said that 48 people had been killed and 70 injured in the floods. It warned of increasing trends of malaria cases in the past two weeks.

Meanwhile, Sudan Interior Minister Mahmoud Hamed put the confirmed death toll at 53, according to the AFP news agency.

The WHO also said property had been damaged in 14 of Sudan's 18 states.

Mark Cutts, the head of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan, told AFP last week the world body was ready to help those affected by the disaster.

He added that this was despite the fact that UN humanitarian operations "have been severely underfunded" this year. More

 

Heat Wave In China

For the entire month of July and the first half of August, eastern China baked in a record-breaking heat wave. Nineteen provinces endured above-normal temperatures.

Shanghai broke its all-time record high three times in as many weeks. The current record—40.8 degrees Celsius (105.4°F)—was set on August 7, 2013. At least 40 people have died during the heat wave, including ten in Shanghai, according to the Xinhua news service.

During a heat wave, ground temperatures soar, particularly in urban areas where there are fewer plants to cool the ground with shade and evapotranspiration. Paved or metallic surfaces can become warm enough to cook food. These images show land surface temperatures as measured by two different satellites.

The image above shows temperature anomalies across China between August 5 and August 12, 2013, as observed by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. Red areas are warmer than the long-term average for the week, while cooler-than-average temperatures are blue. While much of China was warm during this period, the worst of the heat wave was concentrated near the coast and in Tibet. This weather pattern is tied to a subtropical high-pressure system parked over southern China, according to the China Meteorological Administration.

Though miserable everywhere, the heat wave was likely worst in China’s cities, where manmade surfaces absorb heat during the day and cool slowly at night. As a result, cities are warmer during the day and slower to cool at night, making an extended heat wave more uncomfortable, and more deadly, in a city. The image below shows this “urban heat island” effect in Shanghai.

The image was made with measurements taken on August 13, 2013 by the Thermal Infrared Sensor on the Landsat 8 satellite. The warmest surfaces are yellow, while cooler surfaces are pink. The image shows pockets of very warm areas, particularly downtown, surrounded by cooler suburban areas. The dark purple dots are cold clouds.

Chinese officials have declared a weather emergency, warning residents to limit time outdoors. It is the first time the country has issued a weather warning for heat. China’s National Meteorological Center expected the heat to break sometime after August 15.

 

Weather-related losses take their toll

August 19th 2013 8:00 AM Extreme weather events are taking their toll on the insurance industry even though midway through August the North Atlantic has yet to see its first hurricane of the year.

So far there have been five tropical storms including the currently active system Tropical Storm Erin, which is expected to dissipate in the mid-Atlantic.

But while there have been no hurricanes to wreak economic losses, there have been plenty of weather-related events elsewhere to keep risk managers and (re)insurance executives on their toes.

Zurich Insurance Group reported on Thursday a sharp decline in its second-quarter profits, mainly due to weather-related losses in Europe. The company’s net income fell 27 percent to $789 million.

Other insurers and reinsurers are counting the cost of this year’s severe weather-related events.

The major economies of the US, China and Canada have all suffered billions of dollars of losses as a result of severe weather, flooding and — in the case of China — earthquakes.

Strong thunderstorms and rain across the greater Toronto metropolitan region last month caused significant flooding and power outages, which affected businesses, vehicles and infrastructure. Economic losses from that single event have been estimated by AON Benfield at $1.45 billion, with around half of that cost covered by insurance. There was further severe weather in Ontario and Quebec provinces during July, with winds gusting up to 100mph during intense thunderstorms, which caused millions of dollars in insured losses.

Even before July, Canada had already suffered severe weather and flooding. Floods that occurred between June 19 and 24 claimed four lives and caused economic losses of $5.3 billion.

The insurance arm of Canada’s TD Bank Group expected claims costs from the severe weather in Alberta and Toronto to have a pre-tax impact of approximately $170 million after reinsurance.

Group president Ed Clark, in a statement to investors last month, said: “While banks and insurance companies can incur losses from severe weather events, our greatest concern is with the communities and individuals who experienced the devastation in Alberta and the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). We also thank our employees for their efforts to support our customers through these events, when many employees themselves were dealing with the impact.”

In the US weather-related losses have also been significant since the start of the year, with the Plains, Midwest and Northeast suffering economic losses of $6.5 billion in two bouts of severe weather in May and June.

For China it has been worse. During July torrential rainfall across many parts of the country brought floods that claimed the lives of almost 200 people and caused economic losses of more than $7 billion. A magnitude 5.9 earthquake on July 22 in the Gansu Province killed at least 95, damaged 80,000 homes and caused economic losses of $3.25 billion. Since the start of the year China has suffered economic losses due to a number of smaller earthquakes and weather-related events, by far the most significant is the $6 billion loss attributed to drought conditions in parts of the country since January 1.

Europe, Asia, Africa and South America have all suffered weather-related economic losses. A drought in Brazil between January and June caused losses estimated at $8.5 billion, while flooding in central Europe in May and June caused economic losses of $22 billion.

In the aftermath of the devastating floods in Europe, Peter Höppe, head of Munich Re’s Geo Risks Research unit, said: “It is evident that days with weather conditions that lead to such flooding are becoming more frequent and that such weather systems tend to remain stationary for longer. With this higher persistence of weather patterns, the potential for heavy and long-lasting precipitation within a trough situation, for example, increases. The counterpart to this are stationary high-pressure systems which in summer increase the risk of heatwaves and periods of drought.

“Debate in climate research is currently focusing on what the causes of such changes in weather patterns could be and what role climate change might play in this. But it is naturally not possible to explain single events on this basis.”

Even places as remote as the Azores archipelago have not escaped the wrath of the weather. In March the North Atlantic island group took a $45 million economic hit, with more than 500 properties damaged and three lives lost after days of heavy rain lashed the island of Terceira causing severe flooding.

Significant economic losses during July:

US (Severe weather) $175m+

Canada (Severe weather) $1.45b+

China (Flooding) $7b+

Significant economic loss events (January to June 2013):

US (Severe weather May 18-22) $4.5b+

Canada (Flooding June 19-24) $5.3b+

Brazil (Drought Jan 1-May 31) $8.3b+

Europe (Flooding May 30-June 15) $22b+

China (Drought Jan 1-July 31) $6b+

* Economic loss figures from AON Benfield’s Global Catastrophe Recap.

 

Yemen Floods Sweep Away Wedding Party

SANAA, Aug 17 (Reuters) - At least 27 people died and more than 41 were missing after a wedding party was swept away while driving across a valley flooded by monsoon rains in southern Yemen, local officials said on Saturday.

Sanaa, Yemen

The victims, mostly women and children, were in three vehicles accompanying the bride to her new home across Wadi Nakhla, a valley between Taiz and Ibb provinces, the officials from Shara'ab district said. The bride survived the accident.

Rescue teams were searching for those missing, the officials said. State media said that eight people had been rescued.

Yemen, situated at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is prone to flooding during the monsoon season, during which people are often killed.

Flash floods have killed at least 10 other people in Yemen in the past two days and have swept away crops.

One of the poorest countries in the world, Yemen is grappling with an al Qaeda insurgency as it tries to reform its political institutions before elections next year. (Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Louise Ireland) More

 

Robert Fisk discusses violence in Egypt

Robert Fisk, Correspondent with The Independant

discusses violence in Egypt.

 

Sunburned in Siberia: Heat Wave Leads to Wildfires

An intense heat wave in Siberia has contributed to an unusual flare up of wildfires across the fragile and carbon-rich landscape. Smoke from the fires is lofting high into the atmosphere, and is drifting toward the Arctic, where soot can hasten the melting of snow and sea ice.

The map above shows land surface temperature anomalies for July 20–27, 2013, collected by the MODIS imager on NASA's Terra satellite.

The Siberian city of Norilsk, the most northerly city in the world with a population greater than 100,000, recorded temperatures above 83°F over eight consecutive days starting on July 18, according to blogger Chris Burt of Weather Underground. During that timespan, Burt reported, the mercury hit 90°F, breaking the record for the hottest temperature recorded for the city. For comparison the average July high temperature in Norilsk is a comparatively chilly 61°F.

Norilsk isn’t an isolated example, but rather sits amid a sea of abnormally hot temperatures and smoky conditions in north-central Siberia. According to NASA’s Earth Observatory, from July 20 through July 27, temperatures were about 30°F above average across a large swath of this vast, sparsely populated region.

The warm weather has contributed to a spike in wildfires. As of July 29, wildfires continued to burn at least 22,200 acres in Siberia, according to news reports. Heavy smoke from them grounded commercial flights in Omsk, a city in southwestern Siberia, Russia Today reported.

The Siberian fires come on the heels of Russia’s worst wildfire season on record in 2012. Fires burned roughly 74 million acres that year, well above the 50 million acres burned on average for the period from 2000 to 2008. While it’s still early to tell if 2013 will challenge 2012 for a record-setting year, one thing to note about this season is the unusual location of the fires. Typically, large wildfires burn on the southern fringe of the taiga, a dense forest ecosystem also known as the boreal forest, but this year’s fires are burning in a more central portion of the taiga.

Northern Russia has warmed more rapidly than many other places on the globe in recent decades, and according to NASA, researchers expect the number of taiga wildfires there to double by the end of the century.

A recent study of taiga wildfires in Alaska found that these forests are burning at the highest rate in at least the past 10,000 years, and climate change projections show even more wildfire activity may be to come as the northern climate continues to warm and precipitation patterns change.

This image shows smoke billowing from wildfires in the Khanty-Mansiyskiy and Yamal-Nenetskiy districts of Russia on July 25, 2013. Red outlines indicate hot spots where a NASA satellite detected abnormally warm surface temperatures associated with fire.

Concurrent with the heat in Russia, Alaska has had a hot summer too, with wildfires already charring more than 1 million acres across the state. In Anchorage, temperatures topped 70°F for 15 consecutive days in the latter half of the month. That beat the previous string of days above 70°F, which was 13 days set in 2004.

Temperature records have fallen from the coast to the interior. Fairbanks is nearing its all-time record for the greatest number of 80-degree days, having had 29, which is well above their average of 11 such days in a typical summer.

Trees, plants, and soils across the northern latitudes lock up 30 percent of the world’s carbon, far more than forests closer to the equator. The forests are also currently a carbon “sink,” which mean they take up more carbon than they release. While they still act as net carbon sinks at present, it’s possible that wildfires could help flip that role in the future by making these ecosystems a source of carbon dioxide and methane emissions that accelerate global warming.

Fires in the region also deposit soot on ice sheets and glaciers, reducing the amount of incoming solar radiation that the ice can reflect back to space. The dirty ice can then melt faster because it absorbs more heat. Research has suggested that process is already happening in Greenland. Speeding up the melt can contribute to increased sea level rise as well as shifts in weather patterns further south.

Greenland itself saw the highest temperature ever recorded on the island on Tuesday, according to the Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang blog. The temperature reached 78.6°F in Mantiisoq located in the west coast of Greenland. The previous record of 78°F was set in 1990 at Kangerlussuaq, also located on the west coast.

The culprit behind much of the extreme heat in each case has been large, strong, and persistent areas of high pressure, which have set up shop over these high latitude locations, keeping cooler weather and precipitation at bay. More

 

Can Extreme Weather Make Climate Change Worse?

Devastating drought in the Southwest, unprecedented wildfire activity, scorching heat waves and other extreme weather are often cited as signs of a changing climate. But what if those extreme weather events themselves cause more extreme weather events, fueling climate change?

That’s one of the possibilities raised by a study released Wednesday that was conducted by a team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany. The researchers have shown that extreme weather events may reduce an ecosystem’s capability to absorb carbon and create a damaging cycle in which extreme weather fuels climate change by preventing forests from absorbing carbon, allowing more of it to remain in the atmosphere.

Ecosystems absorb about 11 billion fewer metric tons of carbon dioxide every year because of extreme climate events than they would if the extreme weather didn’t occur, according to the study. Eleven billion tons is about the same as a third of a year’s worth of global carbon emissions.

The most damaging kind of extreme weather is the kind of drought that ravaged the Southwestern U.S. early in the last decade, and the kind that is devastating the Southwest and the southern Great Plains today.

“Any extreme can be as damaging as another if it is strong enough,” said Max Planck Institute Director Markus Reichstein, who is leading the study. “We found, however, that globally, the effect of droughts is largest, because they tend to have the largest spatial extent.”

Droughts put extreme stress on ecosystems, and as trees and other plants die, the ability of the drought-stricken ecosystem to absorb carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is greatly diminished.

During a 2003 heat wave that struck central and southern Europe, scientists documented how the extreme heat affected the carbon cycle — the exchange of carbon dioxide between ecosystems, such as forests, and the atmosphere.

Reichstein’s study concludes that it’s possible that droughts, heat waves and storms weaken ecosystems’ “buffer effect” on the climate.

In the past 50 years, plants and soil have absorbed up to 30 percent of the carbon dioxide that humans have emitted, according to the study. The less healthy those plants are, the less carbon they may be able to absorb.

As extreme weather events become more frequent because of climate change, climate researchers believe their impacts on ecosystems could cause a vicious cycle of extreme weather, Reichstein said.

“That is scientifically the most interesting question,” he said. “We cannot answer how strong this vicious cycle is. Increasing carbon dioxide emissions cause a warming climate and, associated with that, increase the intensity of extreme events.”

And those extreme events may damage ecosystems, causing them to absorb less carbon dioxide and allow more of that carbon dioxide to remain in the atmosphere, intensifying the warming of the planet, he said.

More research needs to be done before such a cycle is proven, however.

“This is the logical cycle that can be anticipated,” Reichstein said. “There is no evidence this is happening. We only have evidence for pieces — for individual pieces.”

To gather that evidence, Reichstein and his team used satellite images from 1982 and 2011 to reveal how much light plants in an area absorb so they can perform photosynthesis. From those images, Reichstein’s team determined how much biomass an individual ecosystem accumulates during or after extreme weather.

The team used a global network of 500 stations that record carbon dioxide and air concentrations near ground level and in forest canopies to determine how much carbon dioxide absorption occurs in each ecosystem studied.

Using complex computer models, the team concluded that on average, vegetation absorbs 11 billion fewer metric tons of carbon dioxide than it would in a climate that doesn’t experience extreme weather events.

Reichstein singled out the ongoing drought in the Southwest as a particularly damaging extreme weather event that could affect ecosystems’ carbon dioxide absorption in the U.S.

“I think counting on the biosphere’s ability to absorb carbon is a risky thing because you don’t know how long it will continue to take up carbon dioxide that we emit,” he said. More

 

 

Northeast Asia suffers under severe heat wave

Hong Kong (CNN) -- For countries in Northeast Asia, this summer is becoming too hot to bear.

Dead fish lie in a dried-up pond in Jiujiang, China, on Friday, August 9.

A Japanese city has experienced the highest temperature ever recorded in the country.

The South Korean government is clamping down on the use of air-conditioning in an attempt to stave off power shortages.

And Shanghai has been sweltering under a record-setting run of baking hot days.

The searing temperatures have brought a spike in heat-related deaths, as well as harming crops and livestock.

A new record

In Japan, of the 52 deaths from heatstroke nationwide between late May and early August, nearly one third of them occurred last week, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.

On Monday, the temperature reached 41 Celsius in Shimanto in southern Japan, setting a new national record, according to the Japanese Meteorological Agency.

The agency issued a heat alert covering 37 of Japan's 47 prefectures on Tuesday, warning that the high temperatures are expected to continue for about a week in western, central and southern parts of the country.

Looming energy crisis

The hot weather has come at a bad time for South Korea, putting a severe strain on the country's struggling power grid. The energy supply was already suffering from technical problems, including the shutdown of some nuclear reactors.

Officials have warned of an imminent energy crisis.

To try to prevent shortages, authorities on Monday ordered sweltering workers in government offices to turn off the air-conditioning and avoid using elevators.

The order came two days after the city of Gimhae clocked a temperature of 39.2 Celsius, the highest in South Korea in more than a decade.

Weeks of heat

Parts of China, meanwhile, have been dealing with unusually high temperatures for weeks.

After sweating through its hottest July in at least 140 years, Shanghai last week experienced four consecutive days during which the thermometer went above 40 degrees Celsius, state media reported. That's the first time the sprawling city of 23 million inhabitants has had a run of temperatures that high, according to the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau.

China's National Meteorological Center on Tuesday issued its second-highest heat alert for central and southern parts of the country -- the 20th day in a row that it's issued an alert of that level, the state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

But the agency also offered some hope of a reprieve for heat-weary citizens.

It predicted that "the intensity of the heat and the regions it affects will gradually dwindle over the next three days," Xinhua reported.

CNN's Junko Ogura and journalist Saori Ibuki in Tokyo; and journalist Soo Bin Park in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report. More

 

Get ready for more blackouts

When Hurricane "Superstorm" Sandy hit New York, a large part of Manhattan— the wealthiest place east of the Taj Mahal— was without power for weeks. At least it wasn't unfashionable. According to a new report, blackouts are becoming the new normal.

The Department of Energy's new report answers the question, "What happens when you mix water and electrical sockets?" Actually, it's "How will climate change affect the nation's power grid?" Same thing. "In 2012, the United States suffered eleven billion-dollar weather disasters," they say, "the second-most for any year on record, behind only 2011." Hm. Someone better cover up all the plugs.

The national power grid has been cobbled together over the course of a century. Global warming means more storms, more flooding, and more power outages. The Northern US is projected to get wetter; the Atlantic is projected to produce stronger hurricanes. All in all, "The number of outages caused by severe weather is expected to rise as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of hurricanes, blizzards, floods and other extreme weather events."

The government and the energy companies are investing tens of billions, but if you think that's going to be enough, perhaps you have not looked at a life-size map of America lately. That shit isbig.

[The full report [PDF]. Photo: AP]

 

Why Are Millions Of Fish Suddenly Dying In Mass Death Events All Over The Planet?

Millions upon millions of fish are suddenly dying in mass death events all over the world, and nobody seems to know why it is happening. In many of the news reports that are linked to below, locals are quoted as saying that they have never seen anything like this before. So is there a connection between all of the fish deaths that are now occurring all over the planet?

If there is a connection, is there anything that we can do to stop the fish die-off? Sadly, because the big mainstream news networks in the United States have been virtually silent about this phenomenon, most Americans have absolutely no idea that it is happening. Millions of fish are dying in mass death events every single month and most of the public is totally clueless.

Please share the list posted below with as many people as you can. This list was originally started by Frank DiMora, but I have edited it and expanded it. If there were just three or four items on this list, you could dismiss these news stories as coincidences, but taken together this list really is quite startling…

-: 20 acres of fish ponds full of dead fish in Shandong, China

-July 18, 2013: Hundreds of dead Stingrays wash ashore in Veracruz, Mexico

-July 18, 2013: 10,000 lbs of dead fish found in a lake in Nanjing, China

-July 18, 2013: Thousands of fish dead from “lack of rain” in Sugar Lake, Missouri

-July 18, 2013: Large numbers of fish washing up on the shores of Lake Michigan

-July 19, 2013: 2,000 dead fish found in a lake in Vollsmose, Denmark

-July 19, 2013: Hundreds of fish turning up dead in Holter Lake, Montana

-July 19, 2013: THOUSANDS OF TONS of fish have died in Lake Tondano, Indonesia

-July 20, 2013: 3,000 fish found dead in a creek in Madison County, Ohio

-July 21, 2013: Hundreds of fish found dead in a creek in Laille, France

-July 22, 2013: Hundreds of dead fish found in Lake George, Massachusetts

-July 22, 2013: Large fish kill at Grand Lake in St. Marys, Ohio

-July 23, 2013: Hundreds of dead fish in a park pond in Youngstown, Ohio

-July 24, 2013: Massive fish kill washes up in a lagoon in Venice, Italy

-July 24, 2013: Thousands of dead fish in Lake Bulwell causes shock in Nottingham, England

-July 24, 2013: 30,000 fish dying PER DAY in fish farms in Ratchaburi Province, Thailand

-July 24, 2013: Masses of dead fish found in River Lea in England

-July 24, 2013: Hundreds of dead fish found in Provo River, Utah

-July 25, 2013: Hundreds of fish found dead in a park pond in Birmingham, England

-July 26, 2013: Hundreds of thousands of fish dying from “red tide” in South Korea

-July 26, 2013: Thousands of dead fish found floating in River Dender, Ath, Belgium

-July 26, 2013: Mass fish die-off in a river in Moscow, Russia

-July 26, 2013: 25,000 dead fish “is a mystery” in Pittville Lake in Gloucestershire, England

-July 26, 2013: 20,000 fish die along a 5 mile stretch of river in Jiangshan, China

-July 27, 2013: 10,000 dead fish found in Lake Ariel, Pennsylvania

-July 27, 2013: Mass death of fish “is a mystery” in a river in Skane, Sweden

-July 27, 2013: Large fish kill in the Bahlui river, “cause unknown” in Romania

-July 28, 2013: 1100 King Salmon found dead in a river in Petersburg, Alaska

-July 29, 2013: Hundreds of dead fish wash ashore “due to pollution” on beach in Veracruz, Mexico

-July 29, 2013: 7 TONS of dead fish recovered from the Keelung river in Taiwan

-July 29, 2013: Thousands of fish die “due to heat and storms” in Handsworth Park, Birmingham, England

-July 31, 2013: 3 TONS of fish die due to “lack of oxygen” in a river in Pilsen, Czech Republic

-August 2, 2013: Thousands of fish dying all over Alaska

-August 6, 2013: Up to 1000 lbs of dead fish washed ashore in Ylane, Finland

-August 6, 2013: 840 dead Salmon found in a creek in Port Coquitlam, Canada

-August 6, 2013: Hundreds of dead fish lining the shore of a pond in Toronto, Canada

-August 6, 2013: 100,000 fish die in the Arkansas River

-August 7, 2013: Thousands of dead fish found floating in a river in Hangzhou, China

-August 8, 2013: Tons of fish washed up on the shores of Karachi, Pakistan

-August 8, 2013: Tens of thousands of fish dying in lakes and rivers all over the U.K.

And remember, the list compiled above represents less than a one month period. The truth is that we have been seeing massive fish die-offs all over the globe month after month. More

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A Sinking Village Trying To Escape Climate Change Is Stuck In A Quagmire

Most people think moving to a new house is a hassle. Relocating an entire village is a whole lot harder.

Newtok, Alaska

That’s what the 350 or so native Alaskans who live in the village of Newtok have been attempting in recent years, as the effects of climate change have caused their land to erode and sink from under them. Now, as The Guardian reports, local political infighting and difficulties locking down the tens of millions of dollars required for the move have essentially ground the relocation effort to a halt.

Every year of delay in constructing the new village site nine miles to the south on higher ground matters for Newtok’s residents. The town’s highest point today--the school--could be underwater as soon as 2017, according to a study (pdf) from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

What’s also concerning about Newtok’s struggle to save itself is what this portends for other places that face imminent threats from climate change, including an estimated 180 or so other Alaskan villages. From The Guardian:

Many villages, like Newtok, are losing land to erosion. The Ninglick river, which encircles Newtok is eating the land out from under the village. Others are sinking in the melting permafrost. A handful have started the process of relocation. But none had gone as far as Newtok in finding a new site, and beginning the slow and laborious process of negotiating through the web of state agencies to find funds for their relocation.

Robin Bronen, a human rights lawyer in Anchorage, has argued extensively that the federal government’s failure to recognise slow-moving climate threats as disasters leaves such communities stranded, with no clear set of guidelines – or designated funds – to secure their communities in place, or plan a move.

If it is this difficult to move even a tiny village further inland, one has also got to question the hurdles in store for much larger-scale climate change “adaptation” plans in cities like New York or London. There’s clearly no talk yet of moving any New Yorkers, but in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is suddenly looking to spend $20 billion to build an entire system of levees, movable flood walls and a full-fledged “Seaport City” to protect flood-prone neighborhoods from future disasters.

Unlike the sinking village of Newtok, New York has more time to plan and build defensive measures against sea-level rise and harsher storms. But any ambitious urban infrastructure project would need all the time it can get to make it past bureaucratic and financial hurdles. Just ask the New Yorkers still waiting for the Second Avenue subway to be finished. It has been under various stages of planning since 1929 and is still under construction today. More

Guardian article here