Showing posts with label Go Train flood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Go Train flood. Show all posts

Milli Vanilli "Blame it on the Rain" Meteorology Awards - 2015 Nominees

climate change canada

OUR INSPIRATION - 1989

Milli Vanilli had a hit song "Blame it on the Rain" in 1989 - it was number one for 2 weeks on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 ! And why not?  It had :

1) Phat beat with that Roland TR-808 groove in the back of the mix with tasty cowbell tinkles - who doesn't need more cowbell from an iconic analog beat box?

2) Catchy lyrics per this excerpt:


Gotta blame it on something
Gotta blame it on something
Blame it on the rain (rain)
Blame it on the stars (stars)
Whatever you do don't put the blame on you
Blame it on the rain yeah yeah

3) High production promotion with a couple of 'singers' delivering it all.

As we all know now, the 'singers' we all saw weren't singing at all, but just lip syncing to recorded tracks telling us to "Blame it on the Rain" because we gotta blame it on something.

OUR NOMINEES - 2015

In honour of Milli Vanilli, CityFloodMap.Com now announces the Milli Vanilli Meteorology Award nominees - those who, with little substance "Blame it on the Rain" when it comes to weather science, extreme value statistics, flood risk assessment, and flood damage reduction policy.  TR-808 drum roll please ...... and the 2015 nominees are:

#1 (Acting) Environment Commissioner of Ontario
Connecting The Dots on Climate Data in Ontario, Toronto, January 8, 2015, The Environmental  Commissioner's Eco Climate Data Roundtable for saying :



"But now “1-in-100 year” storms, which are often the threshold for resilient design, are happening more frequently than in the past." (per summary brochure)

See full details:

Why this is a worthy nominee:

Coles Notes: Environment Canada states there has been no significant change in rainfall over decades. Also old systems built pre-1980's to 1-in-5 year storm level of service will continue to flood as they always have - rain is not more frequent as the data clearly shows.  Runoff has increased though in our cities and watersheds.  And flow conveyance systems are more constrained resulting in more frequent back-ups and damage.

*****

#2 (Acting) Environment Commissioner of Ontario
Feeling the Heat: 2015 Annual Greenhouse Gas Progress Report, July 7, 2015 for saying:



"The report notes that extreme weather associated with climate change has already damaged the province’s infrastructure; for example, intense storms and flash floods in recent years have caused costly damage to provincial roadways and commuter rail lines. And future projections for the province point to an even more unpredictable and unstable climate."  (per release document)

See full details:


Coles Notes:  This GO Train rail line area has always flooded, with records going back to the "Great Flood" on September 13, 1878. But the watershed hydrology has changed and there is more runoff than during the 1981 flood inquiry that noted during the March 21, 1980 flood "Part of the CNR track flooded to the north and east of a point south of Bloor Street."  During the April 14, 1980 flood, after a 5-6 hour period of rain, CNR tracks at the Bloor Street ramp were flooded.  The inquiry report indicates that train operation has halted, or trains were detoured during floods, including December 25, 1979, January 11, 1980, March 21, 1980, April 14, 1980, February 11, 1981 and May 11, 1981. Lack of recent Keating Channel dredging may reduce flow capacity of the river system, aggravating flood risks. SO DREDGE THE CHANNEL! IT'S LIKE A METAMUCIL FLUSH FOR FLOOD PREVENTION!

WAKE UP! The May 29, 2013 flood was worse - higher recorded water level at Todmorden gauge, higher flow rate than July 8, 2013 - but luckily missed trains due to the schedule.

*****

#3 Insurance Bureau of Canada
Municipal Risk Assessment Tool & Telling the Weather Story for saying:

"Extreme weather events that used to happen every 40 years now occur every 6 years. IBC is piloting ground-breaking technology – a tool known as MRAT – to help communities reduce flooding caused by sewer backups....How Does MRAT Fight Urban Flooding? Canada’s weather is changing and it’s hurting communities...." (per IBC website)

See full details:
(well you can't because MRAT has some proprietary information, but you can read about the source of the statement in IBC's Telling the Weather Story in our link below)

Why this is a worthy nominee:

Coles Notes: IBC`s report misreports a theoretical normal bell curve shift for temperature changes as actual Environment Canada weather data and then misreports weather to mean extreme rainfall.
Honourable mentions include those who have repeated the IBC statement that storms that used to occur every 40 years occur every 6 years now, including:

Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction
Craig Alexander - TD Economics
thestar.com
cbcnews.ca
Canadian Chamber of Commerce
The Tree - Content for Energy and Climate Communicators
Columbia Institute Centre for Civic Governance
Civic Action
Calgary Sun
CanadianUnderwriter.ca
Aviva Canada

*****

Gotta Blame Flooding on Something? And not the rain?  Here you go:

Our letter to the Minister of the Environment of Ontario has some ideas:

Our research into overland flood risk factors is has some ideas as well:

Overall, instead of blaming it on the rain, look to runoff / hydrology changes in our watersheds and urban catchments, and at flow / hydraulics in drainage infrastructure, including the neglected overland flow system.  See the post below on Rain-Runoff-Flow-Flood.

                                                                            *****

 Extreme rainfall trends in Canada (Environment Canada Engineering Climate Datasets):
Static Maps: http://www.cityfloodmap.com/2015/12/severe-storm-trends-canada-rainfall.html
Interactive Map: http://www.cityfloodmap.com/2015/12/canadian-extreme-rainfall-map-climate.html
Table Summaries: http://www.cityfloodmap.com/2015/12/canadian-extreme-rainfall-summary-by.html
Chart and Table: http://www.cityfloodmap.com/2015/12/top-weather-story-in-canada-2015-less.html
Long-term Station Table: http://www.cityfloodmap.com/2015/12/long-term-climate-change-short-term.html
Environment Canada Denies Changes: http://www.cityfloodmap.com/2015/10/bogus-statements-on-storms-in-cbcnewsca.html
Contradicting Insurance Industry Claims: http://www.cityfloodmap.com/2015/12/trends-in-canadian-shortduration.html

***

 It is noted that the ECO in the 2014 report Looking for Leadership, The Costs of Climate Inaction has repeated the "Weather Story" statement saying:

"For example, the Insurance Bureau of Canada estimates that extreme storms of a magnitude expected to happen every 40 years are now predicted to occur every six years."

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Vaccines and Rainfall Extremes


What do vaccines and rainfall extremes have in common? Both have been victims of bad science when it comes to public education and media reports. And this can lead to bad policies and misguided actions that fail to address real problems.

Recently the outbreak of measles has led the media and medical professionals 'call out' those falsely linking increased autism to vaccines through their anecdotes, beliefs and unscientific arguments. Similarly, increased flood damages have been linked to more extreme weather - more intense storms - due to climate change.  But what do the statistics of extreme rainfall show? How does the scientific data compare to the media hype? Data in Canada (see links at the bottom of this post to maps, charts, tables, etc.) show no increasing trend in extreme rainfall.

But its hard to argue with pictures like a stranded GO Train in the Don River Valley, and suggest that flooding isn't increasing.  That is unless you realize that the river outlet - the Keating Channel - was designed with a low capacity and was the subject of a flood inquiry in the early 1980's.  Keating Channel flood inquiry report.  If it is not dredged it gets clogged with sediment and backs up.  Its not news, its fluviogeomorphology and hydraulics.  TRCA has a nice summary of the century-old problem:

"Since its construction between 1914 and 1922, the Keating Channel has been subject to heavy sediment loads, requiring regular dredging to maintain sufficient depths to allow for and maintain shipping activities at the mouth of the Don River. Between 1950 and 1970, widespread development throughout the Don Watershed and the construction of the Don Valley Parkway increased sedimentation rates by up to four times that of the pre-was era. After 1970, decreases in the number of new watershed disturbances and improved sediment control structures likely contributed to the decline in sedimentation in the Keating Channel to levels similar to the pre-war era. A reduction in shipping activities within the Keating Channel, combined with restrictions on the open water disposal of dredgate imposed by the International Joint Commission (IJC) in 1974, resulted in a cessation of dredging in the Keating Channel. In the following five to six years, the Keating channel filled with sediment and debris to the point where it became visible under all but high lake levels, resulting in increased flood risk along the lower Don."




Because of the low capacity, engineering solutions have been built or proposed like the Lower Don Flood Berm, or the Don Mouth Naturalization Project (DMNP) that just received provincial EA approval (see file EA 03 03 02). Of the DMNP TRCA: "This project will transform the existing mouth of the Don River (the “Don Mouth”) including the Keating Channel, into a healthier, more naturalized river outlet to the Toronto Inner Harbour and Lake Ontario, while at the same time removing the risk of flooding to over 290 hectares of urban land to the east and south of the river." To see how the Keating Channel system was designed to spill all over with limited capacity, check out the hydraulic simulation video above that shows - this is the widespread flooding based on today's design and climate conditions.

In a separate post we explain that the GO Train flood was an operational mishap and not an extreme event - record rainfall at Pearson Airport in the Etobicoke Creek Watershed on July 8, 2013 did not hit the Don River Watershed where the GO Train was stranded, and where the river peaked at a measly 80.7 m, lower than the May 29, 2013 weeks earlier, and lower than the river's one-in-five-year design flow.

Back to rainfall extremes.  Environment Canada's Adaptation and Impacts Research Climate Research Division recently reviewed Southern Ontario rainfall statistics to see if there have been any measurable trends in rainfall patterns and intensities.  These guys are no dummies. A brief summary for those without time to read all 176 pages:

  • Significant increases, as well as decreases, were detected at some stations in a number of the extreme precipitation indicators.  However, the majority of station trends were determined to be non-significant and no consistent geographical patterns for increases or decreases were observed across Canada.  In most cases, the magnitude of the observed changes was also very small.
  • On sub-daily or short duration rainfall intensities of less than 24 hours (this is the data / or trends municipalities would use for planning, design and management of most drainage and stormwater systems that respond to flashy storms):  The majority of the trends were determined to be non-significant with no simple patterns or uniform rates of change evident in the short duration rainfall.  Trends were determined to vary with duration and regional location. 
Temperatures have gone up in recent years - here's a graph at right showing global temperatures increasing.  The internet is full of these, and it is undeniable that temperatures are increasing.

And insurance losses have been increasing in Canada.  You'll have no problem finding graphs and statistics showing the number and size of weather related claims increasing (see below).


But are there any statistics of increasing rainfall intensities?  Apparently Environment Canada does not have any.

But this has not stopped the media from reporting increases as facts.  This may be because the media confounds future predictions with historical trends.

The CBC's Weather Gone Wild documentary
was written by Helen Slinger and Melanie Wood.  To carry on the vaccine science analogy, they are the Jenny McCarthy's of meteorology.  They cite that every degree of temperature rise means 7% more moisture in the air, implying this means more extreme weather (more rain?).  If this linkage is true, how come the rainfall intensities are not increasing like the temperature graph does?  In other words, why does Environment Canada not have a parallel graph showing rainfall intensities increasing too? Jenny McCarthy should consider autism rates were increasing while MMR vaccination rates were decreasing - no correlation.  Helen Slinger and Melanie Wood should consider temperatures were increasing but but rainfall intensities were not - no correlation.

Linking insurance losses to climate change rainfall impacts can cause a province like Ontario to focus on distractions instead of solutions; for example cause it to embark on an expensive green energy program that hurts the economy and consumers.  But what if there have been no increases in extreme rainfall statistics - just extreme weather reporting?  Would the push for green energy be so strong? Would there be as strong a support for GHG reductions?  Yes, there are legitimate reasons to mitigate temperature increases and the effects on our environment, but so far, increased rainfall intensities is not one of those effects (not scientifically measurable). Insurance industry claims have been dismissed based on CBC's consultations with Environment Canada.

Do images of flooded GO Trains support the need for carbon taxes / carbon pricing so that we can tackle supposed rainfall increases?   Maybe we should have a carbon tax, but please use the money to dredge the Keating Channel instead of subsidizing solar panels, and maybe improve some other 100 year old infrastructure that still can't handle today's weather.

Models vs Data - WHat has COVID-19 taught us?: https://www.cityfloodmap.com/2020/05/what-covid-19-taught-us-about-observed.html

More on the 1981 flood inquiry:
go-train-flooding-not-new-1981-inquiry.html

More on why the GO Train flood on July 8, 2013 was completely avoidable:
http://www.cityfloodmap.com/2015/12/stranded-metrolinx-go-train-avoidable.html:

 More on why cognitive biases that hamper rational though on flood causes:
http://www.cityfloodmap.com/2015/11/thinking-fast-and-slow-about-extreme.html

 Extreme rainfall trends in Canada (Environment Canada Engineering Climate Datasets):

 Static Maps: http://www.cityfloodmap.com/2015/12/severe-storm-trends-canada-rainfall.html

 Interactive Map: http://www.cityfloodmap.com/2015/12/canadian-extreme-rainfall-map-climate.html

 Table Summaries: http://www.cityfloodmap.com/2015/12/canadian-extreme-rainfall-summary-by.html

 Chart and Table: http://www.cityfloodmap.com/2015/12/top-weather-story-in-canada-2015-less.html

 Long-term Station Table: http://www.cityfloodmap.com/2015/12/long-term-climate-change-short-term.html

 Environment Canada Denies Changes: http://www.cityfloodmap.com/2015/10/bogus-statements-on-storms-in-cbcnewsca.html

 Contradicting Insurance Industry Claims: http://www.cityfloodmap.com/2015/12/trends-in-canadian-shortduration.html
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