By Jeffrey f. Mount, geology professor and founding Director of the UC Davis Center for watershed Sciences
As you read this today, Sandy hurricane is coming into collision with the cold air from the Canada and create an impressive storm in the Northeast.
An intense low pressure system and strong onshore winds are causing storm surges also higher than 13 feet in Lower Manhattan, threatening to flood the underground network. On Earth, 5-10 inches of rain flooded streams and rivers and flooding the storm water systems.
This combination of too many header of runoff into the ocean and too much water in the pumping of the ocean will continue to cause dramatic coastal flooding this week. Worse yet, the combination is centered on the most densely populated part of the northeast coast, paving the way for maximum economic damage and disruption.
The San Francisco Bay Area business community should take notes. This trio of high tide, storm surge and heavy rain is also a scenario from the Bay Area. Scientists and a host of government agencies have been warning about such an event for years.
It may not be, so on a map, but the Bay area has half of the California coast. Unlike the rest of the coast of the State, most of this coastline is along the recovered lowlands which are prone to flooding creeks bay and the surrounding area - such as cities of waterfront in New York and New Jersey.
A major in the area storm Bay would put more 140,000 people at risk of serious flooding, as well as public goods that include the Port of Oakland, two major airports and 800 km of roads of 30 billion $.
Although they are not the hurricanes, California has its own form of tropical storms, known as the Pineapple Express. Scientists call these storms "atmospheric rivers." They tap into the energy and moisture from the tropics, producing winds and precipitation rates that match the fury of Hurricane Sandy. When these storms combine with the tides as much as Sandy has, they can cause flooding extended along the coast of the Bay.
Several regional and local planning agencies have sounded the alarm: the Association of Bay area Governments. the Conservation of the Bay of San Francisco and the Development Commission; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. the Bay Area Council; the Metropolitan Transportation Commission; CalTrans; the California ocean Protection Council. the Environmental Protection Agency; and the regional Office of the San Francisco Bay water quality control. In addition, all nine Bay area counties have identified this scenario of flooding as significant potential risk in their general plans.
Meanwhile, the business community have been passive - ensure that nothing will happen. It may be because much of the discussion of the Bay on the flood risk area has been in the context long term resulting from climate change sea level rise.
However, all flood studies have shown that the risk is now high. The sea-level rise will only get worse.
Bay area business leaders must map storm whopper this week in the Northeast on its own coastal territory. As California by Sandy version rolls and overwhelms the lean of the Bay area flood defences, such as Oracle, Cisco, Intuit, Lockheed Martin, Google and Facebook will be found incapable of doing business, perhaps for a long time.
It makes sense to bargain for companies to move aggressively to manage their risk of coastal flooding.
Further reading
Association of area Governments Bay flood interactive maps.
Adapting to the rising tide, a collaborative effort for the storms and rise from the waters, led by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Cloern, J.E., n. Knowles, R.S. Brown, d. Cayan, M.D. Dettinger, T.L. Morgan, D.H. Schoellhamer, M.T. Stacey, Mr van der Wegen, R.W. Wagner, and A.D. Jassby, 2011, should change evolution system Bay of San Francisco-Delta-River of California in a century of climate, PLoS ONE, 6
Mount Hanak, e., j. Lund, the Dinar a., b. Gray, r. Howitt, j., P. Moyle, b. Thompson, 2011, management California water: from conflict to reconciliation. Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco. 482 p.
Heberger, M., h. Cooley, P. Herrera, P.H. Gleick and e. Moore, 2009, Rise of the impact of the sea level on the coast of California, California Climate Change Center, CEC-500-2009-024-F Sacramento (CA), 101 p.
Knowles, n. 2010, potential flooding due to rising waters in the San Francisco Bay area. The estuary of San Francisco and the Science of the watershed.
NRC (National Research Council), 2012, raising the level of the sea to the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington: past, present and future. Committee on sea level rise in California, Oregon and Washington. National Academies Press.
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