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发帖数: 1026 | 1 A group of more than 100 scientists and experts say in a new report that
California faces the risk of a massive "superstorm" that could flood a
quarter of the state's homes and cause $300 billion to $400 billion in
damage. Researchers point out that the potential scale of destruction in
this storm scenario is four or five times the amount of damage that could be
wrought by a major earthquake.
It sounds like the plot of an apocalyptic action movie, but scientists with
the U.S. Geological Survey warned federal and state emergency officials that
California's geological history shows such "superstorms" have happened in
the past, and should be added to the long list of natural disasters to worry
about in the Golden State.
The threat of a cataclysmic California storm has been dormant for the past
150 years. Geological Survey director Marcia K. McNutt told the New York
Times that a 300-mile stretch of the Central Valley was inundated from 1861-
62. The floods were so bad that the state capital had to be moved to San
Francisco, and Governor Leland Stanford had to take a rowboat to his own
inauguration, the report notes. Even larger storms happened in past
centuries, over the dates 212, 440, 603, 1029, 1418, and 1605, according to
geological evidence.
The risk is gathering momentum now, scientists say, due to rising
temperatures in the atmosphere, which has generally made weather patterns
more volatile.
The scientists built a model that showed a storm could last for more than 40
days and dump 10 feet of water on the state. The storm would be goaded on
by an "atmospheric river" that would move water "at the same rate as 50
Mississippis discharging water into the Gulf of Mexico," according to the AP
. Winds could reach 125 miles per hour, and landslides could compound the
damage, the report notes.
Such a superstorm is hypothetical but not improbable, climate researchers
warn. "We think this event happens once every 100 or 200 years or so, which
puts it in the same category as our big San Andreas earthquakes," Geological
Survey scientist Lucy Jones said in a press release.
Federal and state emergency management officials convened a conference about
emergency preparations for possible superstorms last week. You can read the
whole report here. | u*******n
发帖数: 2396 | 2 本来还考虑是否移到加州去，现在看来还是扎根纽约吧 |
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