Climate Change

Resources – Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion (MBSD) DRAFT Environmental Impact Statement

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News – The final EIS is available: https://www.nola.com/news/environment/article_65b9af6e-3837-11ed-903e-a786ab658b0e.html

See also: River Diversion Research Articles

The official site: Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion (MBSD) DRAFT Environmental Impact Statement Released for Public Review and Comment

Note – in order to make it more difficult for reporters and others to use the files, they are published with all of the security settings enabled so that they can only be printed. You cannot copy text out of the files for articles or analysis without loading them into a PDF manager such as Qiqqa.

I have collected all of the Draft EIS documents and indexed them with Acrobat. You can download the collection as a zip file here:

https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/climate/docs/eis.zip

The file is about 688 megs. Unzip this into a subdirectory. You will get the EIS files plus the index files.  One file is named MBSD Index.pdx If you open this file in Acrobat or Acrobat reader, it allows you to search all of the files and then page through them to see the search terms in context.

Environmental Justice Issues

US Army Corps of Engineers – 2021 – Draft EIS for the Proposed MBSD Project- Chapter 4 – Environmental Consequences

The environmental justice review starts at p. 615

McCall, Grant S., and Russell D. Greaves. “Creating a Diversion: Why the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion (MBSD) Project Is Unpopular Among Coastal Communities in Southeast Louisiana.” Marine Technology Society Journal 56.3 (2022): 67-83.

Reference Documents

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Climate Change

Petition Requesting That The Federal Emergency Management Agency Amend Its Regulations Implementing the National Flood Insurance Program

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Petition Requesting That The Federal Emergency Management Agency Amend Its Regulations Implementing the National Flood Insurance Program

I. Introduction

Flooding poses a significant threat to life and property and is the most common natural hazard in the United States. Since 1973, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) has paid more than $69 billion in flood insurance claims, half of which have occurred in the last 12 years. Further, the risk of flooding is increasing due to climate change impacts, like sea level rise and changing precipitation patterns, and increased development in the nation’s floodplains. As atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise, flood risk will continue to increase, presenting grave challenges to our nation’s cities, towns, and neighborhoods when floods strike.

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Climate Change

NASA Science Briefs – The Great Ice Meltdown and Rising Seas: Lessons for Tomorrow

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The Great Ice Meltdown and Rising Seas: Lessons for Tomorrow

By Vivien Gornitz — June 2012

As accumulating atmospheric greenhouse gases lead to further climate warming, sea level rise will accelerate, endangering coastal communities by more frequent flooding, exacerbated beach erosion, and saltwater penetration into streams and aquifers. Twentieth century global sea level rise has averaged 1.7 mm/yr, increasing to around 3 mm/yr since 1993, as measured by TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason satellite altimetry. Current trends exceed those of the last few millennia by 1 to 2 mm/yr, based on saltmarsh data from many localities.

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Climate Change

Fake news and disinformation

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The Bad News Game

This is a learning tool on how to build effective fake news. The objective is to teach critical thinking about fake news and disinformation.

The Bad News Primer on Dis/Misinformation

The Bad News Game (Click on Play the Game, then click on one of the responses to get started.)

National Security Issues

NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence: Digital Hydra: Security Implications of False Information Online (2017)

 

 

Climate Change

Drowned Worlds – Doggerland, the Neolithic Bridge between Britain and Europe

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During the last glacial maximum, sea level was around 600 feet lower than today. Southeast Britain was connected to Europe by a land bridge called Doggerland, which is derived from the Dogger Banks which the name of the submerged area. Northern and western Britain was covered by an ice sheet at this time. Doggerland provided a habitat for neolithic tribes migrating from the ice sheet. It was covered with forests and wetlands and was likely a prime area for hunting and gathering. About 8,150 years ago, when most of Doggerland had been inundated by the melting of the ice cap, there was a massive tsunami caused by the collapses of parts of the continental shelf off the coast of Norway. The tsunami was estimated to be 25 meters (82 feet) high. It would have devastated British coastal areas and much of the remaining area of Doggerland. There is evidence that some areas of Doggerland, which would have been islands at the time, were high enough to be refuges for the neolithic peoples in the area. These refugees may have been critical in the resettlement of Britain as sea level stabilized and the ice sheet disappeared.

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Climate Change

Siberian heatwave of 2020 almost impossible without climate change

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Prolonged Siberian heat of 2020

A large, rapid multi-method attribution study, supported by observational and large ensemble model analyses, indicates with high confidence that extremely warm periods such as the 6 months of January – June 2020 over the Siberian region would have been at least 2 °C cooler in a world without human influence. Similar events have a best estimate return time in the current climate of around 130 years and are now more than 600 times as likely to occur as they would have been at the beginning of the 20th century; with the best estimate orders of magnitude larger. By 2050 we expect such a regional warm period in the first 6 months of the year to be at least another 0.5 °C warmer, and possibly up to 5 °C warmer, with similar 6-month regional temperatures becoming correspondingly more frequent. Statements regarding the very high June daily maximum temperatures (38 °C) such as were reported at Verkhoyansk can be made only with much lower confidence. Nevertheless, results also indicate a large increase in the likelihood of such temperatures and, with more confidence, an increase in extreme daily maxima of more than 1 °C when comparing the climate of 1900 to the present day.

Climate Change

NOAA – 2019 State of U.S. High Tide Flooding with a 2020 Outlook

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Sea level rise flooding of U.S. coastlines is happening now, and it is becoming more frequent each year. This flooding typically occurs when ocean waters reach 0.5 meter (m) to 0.65 m above the daily average high tide and starts spilling onto streets or bubbling up from storm drains. Evidence of a rapid increase in sea level rise related flooding started to emerge about two decades ago, and it is now very clear. This type of coastal flooding will continue to grow in extent, frequency, and depth as sea levels continue to rise over the coming years and decades.

2019 State of U.S. High Tide Flooding with a 2020 Outlook