Octopus Overlords

dbt1949 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 06, 2023 7:24 am Without my heater on it got to 58 inside the house. My shaved Yorkie was not happy so I turned the heat back on.

Researchers at the University of South Florida say "major beaching events" are "inevitable" around the Caribbean and parts of Florida resulting from the five-thousand-mile belt of seaweed in the Atlantic Ocean. The blanket of seaweed is so large that it can be seen from space and is being tracked by satellites. Rick Lumpkin, the director of the Physical Oceanography Division of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory at the NOAA, says pieces of it have already made their way to Florida.

"We've seen about mid-to-late February the kind of the leading edges of it started reaching Florida and passing Florida," Lumpkin told Spectrum News.

The species of seaweed referred to as sargassum originates in the Sargasso Sea, located in the Atlantic Ocean off the Eastern United States. Lumpkin says large beach inundations started occurring in 2011. According to a recent outlook from the University of South Florida Optical Oceanography Lab, "there is already a sign that this year's Sargassum bloom will likely be the largest ever recorded, with major impacts throughout the next few months." The report says the peak month could be June or July.

Lumpkin says what we can expect along Florida beaches depends on winds and tides, but the west coast of Florida does not look particularly threatened. "This particular batch, blob, that's been making the news so much recently, is really going to affect mostly along the path of kind of between Cuba and the Keys and then between Miami and Bahamas and then all along the U.S. east coast, all the way up to Wilmington, North Carolina," said Lumpkin.

As of March 23 Lumpkin said there had been "no requests from the state of Florida or federal agencies requesting information from NOAA about potential impacts." Lumpkin says large amounts of seaweed can damage reefs and seagrass, and it smells when it rots.

"It's very unpleasant," said Lumpkin. "It releases hydrogen sulfide, and there have been published studies that argue that there can be negative health impacts to humans under conditions like that." Lumpkin noted that in small amounts, the seaweed is beneficial to a number of species, like baby turtles and juvenile fish.

Homes constructed in flood plains, storm surge zones, regions with declining water availability, and the wildfire-prone West are overvalued by hundreds of billions of dollars, recent studies suggest, creating a housing bubble that puts the U.S. financial system at risk.

The problem will get worse as sea level rises and storms dump heavier rains and if unwise building practices continue. But increased awareness of climate risks, more realistic flood insurance pricing, and reform of government disaster policy could reduce this overvaluation — and the risk of an economically disastrous bubble burst.

Climate futurist Alex Steffen has described the climate change–worsened real estate bubble this way: “As awareness of risk grows, the financial value of risky places drops. Where meeting that risk is more expensive than decision-makers think a place is worth, it simply won’t be defended. It will be unofficially abandoned. That will then create more problems. Bonds for big projects, loans and mortgages, business investment, insurance, talented workers — all will grow more scarce. Then, value will crash, a phenomenon I call the Brittleness Bubble.” Something that is brittle is prone to a sudden, catastrophic failure, and cannot easily be repaired once broken.


Figure 1. County-level overvaluation of property from flood risk. Florida had the highest property overvaluation — about $50 billion. In 2021, Florida’s real estate industry accounted for $294 billion, or 24% of the gross state product, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors. (Image credit: Gourevitch et al., 2023, Unpriced climate risk and the potential consequences of overvaluation in U.S. housing markets, Nature Climate Change volume 13, pages 250–257)


Figure 2. Local government vulnerability to revenue loss from unpriced flood risk. Orange hues indicate the proportion of municipal revenue derived from property taxes; purple hues indicate property overvaluation as a proportion of total property value (color breaks every 10%). Counties in black and outlined in red indicate municipalities that are both heavily reliant on property tax revenue and have high overvaluation. (Image credit: Gourevitch et al., 2023, Unpriced climate risk and the potential consequences of overvaluation in US housing markets, Nature Climate Change volume 13, pages 250–257)

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 6:18 pm

Does Dallas (County) have risk? There are 12,723 properties in Dallas that have greater than a 26% chance of being severely affected by flooding over the next 30 years. This represents 7% of all properties in Dallas.

Dallas, Texas Flood Factor® Report

Risk Factor
https://riskfactor.com › city › dallas-tx › 4819000_fsid

There are 1,641 properties in Port St. John that have greater than a 26% chance of being severely affected by flooding over the next 30 years. This represents 24% of all properties in Port St. John.

What You Need To Know
• Heavy rains caused widespread flooding in South Florida
• About 2 feet of rain has fallen in the area this week
• The flooding forced the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport to close
• Fort Lauderdale City Hall and some schools also had to be closed

Hrothgar wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 6:48 pm You just had to post that drought map didn't you.

Jeff V wrote: ↑Tue Apr 11, 2023 10:28 pm Weather is delightful here. Low 80's today. Will be cold and rainy this weekend, with temps back to the 30's, so no summer yet.

Max Peck wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 9:36 pm We hit a high of 29.6C this afternoon. The previous record high on this day was 27.8C, set in 1968, and the average high is 10.4C.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 9:10 pm

Jeff V wrote: ↑Tue Apr 11, 2023 10:28 pm Weather is delightful here. Low 80's today. Will be cold and rainy this weekend, with temps back to the 30's, so no summer yet.

81 today, snow Monday.

I have like 6 jackets out.