Storm slowed by climate change soaks the Southeast

The Big Story

Storm slowed by climate change soaks the Southeast

Tropical Storm Debby is “meandering” off the coast of Georgia and the Carolinas, which it is soaking with record rainfall, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).

© AP Photo/Mic Smith

“This slow motion of Debbie is going to result in that long duration of heavy rainfall, and could cause potentially catastrophic flooding,” NHC meteorologist Michael Brennan told reporters Wednesday morning.

With 15 to 25 inches of rain expected across the Southeast, Brennan said the agency was “very concerned about the possibility of life-threatening flash flooding” in cities like Savannah, Ga.; Charleston and Myrtle Beach, S.C., and just west of Wilmington, N.C.

That level of rain, Brennan said, meant flooding in places that aren’t usually accustomed to it; widespread “inundations of businesses and homes” driving emergency rescues and highways closed from flooding or as roads are “eroded from underneath.”

Flooding is also worsened by Debby’s winds, which are pushing ocean water up against the low-lying, flood-prone — and slowly sinking — cities of the Southeast, making it even harder for the region’s waterways and sewer systems to drain water into the ocean.

That dangerous level of rainfall is a direct result of the storm’s slow speed, which has allowed it to all-but-hover in place, giving its winds and rain bands unusual amounts of time to transfer billions of gallons of water from the unseasonably hot waters of the Atlantic to the cities of the Southeast, as The Hill reported.

And Atlantic hurricanes may be slowing down in general as heat largely trapped by burning fossil fuels strengthens the westerly winds that slow their passage north, according to a 2020 study out of Princeton.

The result of all that rain is a storm that threatens the Eastern Seaboard with as much as a week of “life-threatening” flooding, Brennan said.

That risk extends across the coastal Carolinas through Friday, as a Debby strengthened by the Gulf Stream lumbers back onshore Thursday morning, and which will extend across northern North Carolina and “all the way through the mid Atlantic states and into southern New England through Sunday morning,” he added.

Over the past decade, rain-driven flooding has gone from a small share in total hurricane deaths to the biggest factor, according to a 2023 report by the NHC that Brennan coauthored.

Between 2013 and 2022, 57 percent of hurricane fatalities came from rain-driven flooding — more than twice the share seen in hurricanes that hit the U.S. between 1963 and 2012.

Welcome to The Hill’s Sustainability newsletter, I’m Saul Elbein — every week we follow the latest moves in the growing battle over sustainability in the U.S. and around the world.

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Essential Reads

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Origins of Life

How the moon may have helped Earth develop complex life

© The Associated Press

The pull of the moon helped slow the Earth’s rotation during two distinct periods in the distant past — a shift in the planet’s spin that scientists speculate helped evolve the underwater ecosystems where complex life developed.

During two prolonged periods between 650 and 280 million years ago, the distance between Earth and its satellite increased by 12,000 miles, driving a more than two-hour increase in the length of the day, according to findings published on Tuesday in PNAS.

Those periods of increasing day length were a punctuated “staircase” — rather than a gradual, continuous shift, the PNAS researchers found.

Those periods of sudden (in geologic terms) changes in day-length brought a significant uptick in the amount of light hitting the Earth’s oxygen-exhaling plants — dramatically increasing the availability of an element whose highly reactive nature offered “a major coup for early life forms.”

The fastest periods of changing day length correlated with a rise of highly energetic oxygen in the atmosphere — which also coincided with two similarly rapid expansions in the diversity and complexity of life, the PNAS study found.

The first period of day-lengthening overlaps with the bursting forth of new forms of complex animal life in the Cambrian Explosion 550 million years ago — a period when most of today’s animal body plans developed.

The second corresponds to the vast radiation of species during the Permian and Carboniferous periods, when amphibians rose from the sea to colonize the land, and reptiles and the ancestors of dinosaurs and mammals appeared.

In another tantalizing detail, the scientists noted, the reason for the lengthening day was the ocean’s greater absorption of the moon’s tides — which could have churned up the ancient seas in ways that helped form oxygen-producing environments.

This possible connection between the airless, lifeless moon and the Earth’s teeming biosphere is still largely conjecture, “and must be interpreted with care,” the scientists conceded.

They added that next steps in the research will hinge on getting a more precise date for the surges in the Earth’s oxygen to see how well they correlate with the moon’s impact on the length of the planet’s days.

On Our Radar

Upcoming news themes and events we’re watching:

• Like Democratic presumptive nominee Vice President Harris, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) — Harris’s chosen running mate — has a history of suing Big Oil. In 2020, he presided over a state lawsuit against companies like ExxonMobil, Koch Industries and the trade group American Petroleum Institute for deceiving the public about climate change and prolonging the use of planet-heating fossil fuels.
• That case is ongoing while Harris and Walz campaign for the White House, with the Supreme Court in January denying a bid by the fossil fuel defendants to move it to federal court, in what climate advocates billed as a victory.
• A D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday knocked down the permit for a South Texas liquified natural gas facility, marking the first time a court has blocked federal approval of such a terminal.

• The ruling — which found that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission had failed to properly consider environmental justice impacts and carbon pollution — represents the court’s third ruling in a month to find that the agency had failed to properly consider carbon emissions from gas infrastructure.

In Other News

Branch out with different reads from The Hill:

18 House Republicans ask Johnson not to target IRA clean energy tax credits

More than a dozen House Republicans wrote to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Tuesday asking him not to axe clean energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) if the GOP maintains or expands its House majority next year.

Trump strikes softer tone on EVs after Musk endorsement

Former President Trump has softened his tone on electric vehicles (EVs) following his backing from Tesla’s Elon Musk.

Around The Nation

Local and state headlines on sustainability issues:

• Ice rink fumes have sent kids to the hospital. Still, few states require tests. (Stateline)
• DC Circuit vacates FERC’s reapproval of Texas LNG export terminals, gas pipeline (Utility Dive)
• The hurricane party rolls on in SC’s southernmost county (The Post and Courier)

What We’re Reading

Sustainability news we’ve flagged from other outlets:

• Tim Walz’s Big Climate Ambitions (The New York Times
• Wildfires will put even more pressure on the country’s housing crisis (Grist)
• Taking Over from the Inside: China’s Growing Reach Into Local Waters (Inside Climate News)

What Others are Reading

More stories on The Hill right now:

Patrick Rome is participating in the Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge for the second time.

Lenacapavir has been hailed as a potential game changer in the fight against HIV.

You’re all caught up. See you next week!

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