A Change of Climate: Houston, Texas and Adaptation Planning

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A Change of Climate Houston, Texas and
Adaptation Planning

• Paul Martin Suckow
• Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public
  Affairs
• Urban Planning and Environmental Policy Ph.D.
  Program
• TSU Research Day, April, 2007

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Abrupt climate change
More heat in atmosphere, More humidity, drier
land , greater floods, Gulf Stream slowing,
Climate zones advancing northward, Greatest
changes always in past 5 years.
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Uncertainty not if but how bad?
Approximate heat imbalance at Earths surface 2
W/Sq M.
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Facts, nonfiction

• Consensus solidified by 1996-2005 detailed ice
  core studies covering almost a million year
  period, 12 past ice ages.
• Modern humans by GHG production have already
  ended the Holocene age in which they ascended.
• Current changes already unprecedented in the
  entire fossil record, so effects must be ruled
  uncertain.

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Facts, nonfiction

• Natural examples from the fossil record of abrupt
  climate changes are associated with each of the
  five major extinctions.
• Scientists believe that the sixth major
  extinction now underway may include half of the
  Earths species.
• Biotic diversity will require 20,000 human
  generations to recover to mid-20th century levels.

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Abrupt climate change

• Throughout the fossil record, the climate has
  shifted between two average stable states
• The Hot-box Earth No surface ice.
• The Cold-box Earth Some glaciers and snow.
• Such changes resulted from the natural confluence
  of highly sensitive cycles
• Solar output, orbital position, tilt and wobble.
• Planetary collisions, superplume convection,
  biotic- material-atmospheric evolution.

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Abrupt climate change evidence

• Within the cold box world of life as we know it,
  cyclic variation
• Long ice ages
• Warmer interstadials
• Turbulence between (see Younger Dryas)

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Abrupt climate change triggers

• Albedo cooling
• Greenhouse warming
• Feedback effects
• Ocean,
• Cryosphere,
• Atmosphere,
• Biosphere, all interact.

Thus far, computer models still do not
incorporate sufficient resolution, hierarchies,
and feedback mechanisms to understand the
velocity and magnitude of recorded features.
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Abrupt climate change actors

• Oceans.
• 10 100 times the heat capacity of land
  surfaces.
• Primary climate shaper through heat transport via
  salinity/density changes.
• Three distinct near-global floods of ice sheet
  melt waters have occurred
• 14,600 years ago (Meltwater Pulse 1A 20m)
• 12,700 years ago (Younger Dryas warming 100m)
• 8,450 years ago (Legends of Gilgamesh, Noah 20m)

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Abrupt climate change actors

• Cryosphere
• Ice and snow cover
• Sea ice chills planet,
• Lowers moisture,
• Stabilizes weather.
• Glaciers and snows
• Maintain cold state,
• Fresh surface water,
• Stabilizes biotic growth.

Ice and snow cover reflect back to space 90 of
the radiation received. Sea and land surfaces
absorb 90 of solar irradiation.
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Abrupt climate change actors

• Atmosphere
• Rapidly propagates a climate forcing from one
  place to all others.
• Primary shaper of Earths energy fluxes.
• Wind fields linked to ocean upwelling, surface
  currents and wave action.

A Parcel of air (and the dust/moisture/pollutant
s it carries) typically moves by wind from
Houston to Illinois or the Appalachians within
two days.
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Abrupt climate change actors

• Biosphere
• Performs regulatory role.
• Large rain forests act as planetary lungs in the
  carbon cycle, as well as an evolutionary nursery.
• Coastal wetlands mop up pollutants and slow
  dangerous wind conditions.
• Moving plant and animal niches will strand many
  species without food or shelter, while
  asynchronous bloom/birth cycles will cut off much
  reproduction.

On average, climate zones and the biological
niches they harbor are moving about 100 feet
northward per year already, with greater change
inevitable over the next century.
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Expected effects upon Houston

• 10 - 40 increased disease risk
• Exotic/re-evolving diseases
• - Malaria (shown)
• - Dengue (break bone) fever

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Expected effects upon Houston

• Lower crop yields
• Larger croplands
• 10-20 decreases in Texas cotton and sorghum
  crops.
• 40 - 70 decreases in Texas wheat crop.

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How to support greater understanding

• 24 hour and year round use of public and
  quasipublic facilities, including those in the
  built environment and on the internet, should
  enable more of the free association that empowers
  democratic governance.
• Maximizing available structural and energy
  resources should encourage stimulating
  educational/recreational gatherings as well as
  quiet refuge for those of all interests.

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Adaptation to Climate Change

• Understanding patterns of abrupt climate change
  can help reduce vulnerability and increase
  adaptive activity.
• The human potential to exceed Earths
  environmental carrying capacity is very real and
  may already have happened.
• The choice between environmental stewardship vs.
  economic development is a false choice.
• Environmental stewardship will proceed directly
  with future development, or humanity will end.

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Adaptation to Climate Change

• Greater human involvement in the management of
  formerly natural and wilderness environs is an
  unavoidable consequence of historical
  anthropogenic greenhouse gas production.
• Until the global climate can be stabilized and
  managed satisfactorily, humanity should commit
  itself to a new project of minimizing losses of
  life and civilization as we know it.

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Gulf Coast Adaptation

• Ocean coastal properties cannot be expected to
  survive routine future hurricanes.
• Structures elevated below 28 feet above sea level
  are already at risk of destructive storm surge
  today.
• As aquifer withdrawal continues to subside
  irrigated landforms and sea level rises due to
  icecap melt water/thermal expansion, these storm
  surges will ride higher over time.
• Because 80 feet of sea level rise is likely
  during any new structures lifetime, new
  development should be located higher than 110
  feet above sea level.

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Expected effects Sea level rise

• IPCC Report 3 (2001)
• 1 meter rise before 2100
• 400 meters of coastal plain lost
• NASA (Hansen) Model (2005)
• 25 -10 meters (80 ft) at meltdown of Greenland
  and West Antarctic Icecaps (before 2100?)
• 10-4 km of coastal plain lost
• Houston Downtown and IAH at risk from storm
  surges of sea water
• Total cryosphere loss
• 67 m (220 ft) at full meltdown (before 2150?)
• New shoreline at San Antonio/Austin/Dallas
• Downtown Houston will be covered by over 100 feet
  of sea water

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Gulf Coast Adaptation

• This consideration makes all of the rebuilding
  along the Gulf Coast after hurricanes Katrina and
  Rita, by definition, a temporary redevelopment.
• Offshore (oil, gas and wind) infrastructure may
  require major modifications to withstand future
  hurricanes on top of sea level rise, or to be
  converted into tightly anchored breakaway
  structures.

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Gulf Coast Adaptation

• A majority of Florida and Louisiana land
  ultimately will not remain above water if this
  centurys global temperature increase exceeds two
  (2) degrees Celsius.
• Computers project between 2 and 5 degrees Celsius
  as the likely increase.
• An alternative to business-as-usual is mandatory
  for success in these two states.

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Houston Adaptation

• New infrastructure and development between now
  and 2050 should be located at or above 110 feet
  above the current sea level.
• west of Downtown Houston.
• west of the North Fwy I-45.
• west of the South Fwy 288.
• Any building below 110 feet should be considered
  a temporary structure.

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Houston Adaptation

• The land below 110 feet above sea level should
  return to coastal wetland salt marshes over time.
• That wide belt of coastal Texas land between
  downtown Houston and the salt marshes might
  better be used for organic agriculture to grow
  local food supplies, than for dense human
  occupancy.

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Houston Adaptation

• The clearly unsustainable oil infrastructure east
  of Houston poses environmental and health
  threats, and should be mitigated when it is
  intentionally retired.
• These threats include water contamination by
  spills of oil and oil products, air contamination
  by volatile organic compounds, explosive hazards,
  radioactive scaling inside the pipes, and
  decreasing integrity under saltwater intrusion.

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Houston Adaptation

• Houstons transportation network can be expected
  to remain within current rights of way, even if
  rebuilt after disaster damage.
• To make most efficient use of rights-of-way,
  immediate efforts to provide bus rapid transit
  and rail alternatives should continue.
• Future guide way rapid transit options should
  plan to occupy all freeway corridors, and some
  arterials.

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Houston Adaptation

• The use of both private and public automobiles
  should continue, but be increasingly limited to
  shorter-ranged fully electric vehicles refueled
  from on- or off-site solar electro voltaic
  panels, wind or tidal/wave power.
• Decentralized alternative power sources should be
  planted throughout the power grid.

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Houston Adaptation

• All new electrical power plants should be
  developed to use 100 closed loop systems with
  complete carbon sequestration.
• Stack emissions should become a thing of the
  past.
• Such non-emitting oil/coal processing plants
  could safely form the core of future urban
  development, providing organic material
  processing and production employment close to
  residences that maximize human values and human
  powered transport options.

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Houston Adaptation

• Increasing mobility by use of light personal
  electromagnetic flying rigs should be encouraged,
  along with general aeronautical education.
• Trans-city shipment and transport options should
  use electromagnetic power trains.
• Air and ocean transport options using fossil fuel
  technology currently only emits about 5 of
  global CO2 gasses. These should be allowed to
  double those emissions to expand capacity, safety
  and redundancy.

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Houston Adaptation

• Seagoing vessels should increase in size for
  safety and economic reasons.
• A tiered system of port interaction with larger
  vessels should be developed to enhance safety,
  security and efficiency of distribution.
• Increasingly seagoing vessels should be converted
  to nuclear power with single-use closed
  containment of fuels for deep-sea burial upon
  emergency or expiration.