Fluctuations between wet and dry boundaries have always been a feature of CaliforniaBut the weather of the past months does not bode well, and the El Niño phenomenon will arrive soon, which will make life more difficult for the operators of the various water dams, whose mission is to maintain and regulate the state’s water supply. The only problem is that California’s dams, like more than 58,000 dams in the world, were not originally designed to handle today’s extreme climate conditions – it is increasingly difficult to calculate when and how much rain will fall on a given area.
Between October 2022 and March 2023, for example, 31 atmospheric rivers ravaged the state, most of which climate scientists did not expect.
Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow bands of moist air that typically transport water vapor from the equator toward the poles at twice the rate of the Amazon River. The phenomenon can occur all over the world, most often in the fall and winter – however, if the affected reservoir is not prepared for its arrival, problems can easily erupt, as happened in Libya last September.
Thousands have lost their lives because of this
Storm Daniel, which began on September 4, 2023, caused the deaths of at least 5,000 people and the disappearance of 10,000 others in Libya. This rare and destructive subtropical monster became so huge thanks to the unusually warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea, thanks to which it reached the coast of the North African country with such force that it collapsed two dams on the mainland. A huge mass of water rushed into the Derna River, completely destroying most of the eastern part of the city of Derna.
Interestingly, due to global warming, such natural phenomena known as “tropical cyclones in the Mediterranean” or “tropical cyclones” will become more and more rare, which can be said to be a positive thing – however, this is no longer the case. When he strikes someone, his power is even more terrifying than before; Especially when it affects countries that are not prepared to deal with extreme weather phenomena. However, global warming will not disappear from one moment to the next, so in the future we will have to expect more and more of the natural disasters that occurred this year, he writes. Wired In accordance with Article Ars Technica.
All is not lost
Of course, all this does not mean that the world’s water reservoirs will collapse one after another within a few years, but the problem is real – but there is a way to prevent it. Thanks to the rapid development of computer technologies and artificial intelligence, for example, more accurate and reliable forecasts can be made in the future, which can contribute significantly to the protection of dams, because the operator can decide in time, for example, to lower the water level before the arrival of a storm. .
It’s also important to remember that as climate disruption sets in, solar and wind can provide equivalent energy with less risk, says Josh Klemm, co-executive director of International Rivers, a human rights organization focused on river communities.
We really need to reconsider new plans for hydropower development, because at the moment we are only deepening our dependence on a climate-vulnerable energy source.
He said.
(Cover photo: Flooded homes and buildings in Palamas in the Karditsa region of Greece after Storm Daniel on Friday, September 8, 2023. Photo by Konstantinos Tsakalidis/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
