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By Guillaume Mauger, Research Scientist, Climate Impacts Group, UW Seattle Sea level rise isn’t the only factor driving changes in flood risk for Washington State: many rivers and creeks in the region are projected to see higher peak flows in the future. This is especially a concern in estuaries, where the combined changes in river flow and sea level could dramatically change the outlook for flooding. Rivers flood because of high flows, of course, and there are two principal ways that climate change could affect the size and frequency of flooding. The most well-known is by decreasing the amount of snowpack. Mountain snow acts as a reservoir, holding back water in winter and releasing it in summer. As temperatures rise, storm events bring more rain and less snow. Much of that excess rain goes directly into our rivers, leading to bigger floods. The other major effect is the intensity of our rain events – research has only recently begun to quantify how our big storms might change in the future, and that modeling generally shows that those storms will bring more rain. More rain means larger floods. This is all summarized in a nice infographic, developed by the Skagit Climate Science Consortium, or SC2.
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This year at the 2017-2018 CHRN annual meeting, tsunami and earthquake hazards for Washington were highlighted during a panel presentation. The panel included the following five local experts: Carrie Garrison-Laney of Washington Sea Grant, Randy LeVeque of the University of Washington, Daniel Eungard of the Washington Department of Natural Resources, Dan Abramson of the University of Washington, and Ann Bostrom of the University of Washington.
By Hannah Hickey and edited by MaryAnn Wagner
A new report by the Washington Coastal Resilience Project team, entitled Projected Sea Level Rise for Washington State – A 2018 Assessment, provides new projections for more than 150 different sites along the Washington coastline, from all marine shorelines in Washington state. The report incorporates the unique geology-driven land motion, with uplift at Neah Bay and sinking in Seattle. And it provides the latest, probabilistic estimates to let planners weigh the risks of different scenarios. |
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