@user-ym6dl8tq6u I'm so glad you are enjoying my videos! You let me know if you ever have any questions. Sometimes people set me in what turn out to be really interesting directions.
Hey Dr Emily, I think that the hotspot you are calling Allentown is actually the Wyoming Valley, which includes Scranton and Wilkes - Barre. It's a lower elevation area surrounded by mountains. Tends to be warmer there than the surrounding region and it's filled with cities and towns, making a heat island and GHG increase area.
@rollinswitch thanks for this explanation! That makes total sense if what we've visualizing there is a marked low elevation patch with pretty dense population. Appreciate your help!
One other thing I'd like to add as a resident, many of the places that would have had serious flooding already experienced that in the past. Many low-head dams were running throughout the state to povide recreation, support logging and occasionally generate power. The very large floods that did hit in the past either eroded away or caused the destruction of sub-optimal dams and the construction of resiliency measures in several locations. As horrific as some of those disasters of the past were, they also have helped position us to be resilient when it comes to flooding in the future. For instance, the levy around the Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg area hasn't really been called upon since it's been constructed due to the fact that there are no dams upstream that are liable to collapse and send a wall of water down. Thank you for this thorough overview, I really appreciate the tools that you've shown us
@victorquesada7530 thanks for these interesting ground notes. Knowing the history of a place, especially around hydrology, and what resilience is already in the build environment- super important background!
@DarthNehimis a fair number of people are connecting on the Discord- I think there's an updated link in this video description. We're working on a web upgrade & part of that plan- as we move towards the fall -is to make more of a focus on helping people in different areas connect. I hear from a lot of people who are interested in that on-the-ground connection.
Is there any way to predict how # of sunny days (vs cloud cover) will be impacted? For example, we often think of moving to Pittsburgh but my husband has seasonal affective disorder and it is depressingly overcast there.
@lmp23612 this is a question that is important to many people! I don't have a direct answer- like, a good tool that would actually get you the data-based info you want- but I have a proxy that I hate so much I don't use it. I'm sure now you're tempted lol. But if we can get some insight, why not? Here's the best suggestion I can make. If you go to the US Climate Resilience Toolkit and click on "climate projections", it launches the Climate Explorer. Use the map rather than graph function and map "dry days". Pin your future scenario at 2050 high emissions and use the slider to see how the number of days with no precipitation will change. If they go down, you probably have some decrease in cloud cover. If they go up, probably some increase.
Have you seen some of the Mexican and Central American record temperatures. They are crazy! When I took meteorology my professor said those high temperatures were only possible on our planet in very few places and were caused by the adiabatic process. I guess we have to worry about living on the east side of mountain ranges now.
On 9 May, in Observatorio de Tacubaya/Mexico City the temperature reached 34.3°C, a new all-time record high temperature for this weather station; and Gallinas, eastern Mexico, recorded the 51.1 °C. I think that is 124 Fahrenheit.
I am confused about the facts on latent energy of phase change because Gallinas mexico is on the green side of the mountain. I thought the dry side got the crazy temperatures from the adiabatic process.
@BenHuttash that's terrifying. Like, all of the information you shared in these comments is terrifying! Especially with your background from your studies, it sounds like this may be another area where we're seeing seriously unexpected phenomena. I'm "hearting" all these comments because I think other people will want to see this information.
Hey Dr.Emily looks like your assessment of the Arizona hills and Mts north of Phoenix was spot on..As you know Phoenix has seen temps in the 105-110 range 1 month earlier then average this year and because of that heat it has made the hills and mtn areas north of there into a tinderbox..Unfortunately we are going to see increasing fire danger as our summers heat up on the way to 2C..just amazing and scary at the same time..
@michaelshiessl8357 a full month earlier?! I tell you, I would rather these predictions not be accurate, but the NCA5 1.5C projections sure appear to be spot on for where we are today... Hope we get as many years as possible before 2C. The impact on so many living things has to be terrible there in Arizona. Think of what that would mean for everything's water needs. Regarding fire- in some places, you can see how there's landscape to come after fire. That you could have grasslands instead of forest. But in some of the deserts, the increased heat and the fires are killing even the microorganism crusts that hold the soil together. We just don't have a North American analog for what comes next. Those transforming deserts, it is hard to understand what they will become.
@@AmericanResiliency Yes Emily I have a cousin who lives in Glibert AZ a suburb of Phoenix...he's been there 20 years and he said May is in the mid to high 90s and temps in June are normally high 90s to 100 maybe 102..this year in June they have seen 112-113 a full 10 degrees up..those are normally mid July and August temps..he noticed on his electric bill too which was higher because of the heat..I told him you know that if power were to go out in summer that there would be tens of thousands of people that would die!! He said that's scary!he was up hiking in May too and talked to a ranger because he noticed a lot of brown trees in low mtns areas of 4,500- 5,000 feet..The ranger said its the heat that's stressing the trees and bark beetles have come into the picture and are killing trees just like they have in the high Sierras of Calif..it reminded me of recently going to Yosemite Valley and used to see green trees now brown dead trees are interlaced with the green ones..Again those beetles that thrive in warmer temperatures..Just another cause and effect of our warming planet.
@@michaelschiessl8357 that's so sad to hear about the pines, if not unexpected. My aunt lives near Yosemite, a ways down the mountain- outside of Coarsegold. I went and saw her about twice a year while I was studying at ASU. Seeing the pine habitat there change so quickly, seeing her whole community's landscape transform completely in five years, it had a big impact on me. Thinking about Gilbert AZ reminded me of the Riparian Preserve there- Water Ranch. If you go visit your cousin- if you haven't gone for a little hike through that preserve, the birding is just incredible.
@@AmericanResiliency great idea maybe next spring I will..I did go to the Arizona botanical gardens a couple years ago lots of native cactus and floral gardens..And a screened off Butterfly pavilion which has thousands of species of Butterflys inside it...Magical place!!
@dianewallace6064 if you're a little away from the water, I'd feel confident digging in in Philadelphia. I really do think it has the best outlook of any major east coast city- it will be very interesting to see what happens in your city!
@AmericanResiliency The aging and in places crumbling infrastructure is a concern even at current level, but in terms of climate change itself, it seems like we're doing "good" (relatively).
@@JCurcio let's get real for a minute here. America met Philadelphia through "Always Sunny". What we saw in that show- your city is clearly pre-staged in the mildly apocalyptic style perfect for our climate future. ;-) More seriously, Chicago also has some seriously crumbling infrastructure, and that city is also a great climate bet. I do think we will see more infrastructure investment going to areas based on climate outlook. I'll be doing the New Jersey outlook in a few weeks. You'll see, Philadelphia is looking great compared to anything in a HUGE developed area just north of you all.
@@AmericanResiliency I am not sure what the above poster means by "you won't own your water" exactly, but there are some good nuances to consider. An accessible document I found here files.dep.state.pa.us/water/bsdw/WaterAllocation/water_law_review_022806.pdf seemed to sum up the following points: Tl;Dr - Don't be a jerk and steal other people's water, or flood their land, by messing with the current hydrological system. As long as you're not causing harm, there's more than enough water to go around 1. If you have water flowing next to or on your property, you can take from it for normal household activities (dirty water can't just flow downstream unimpeded, for example). These activities have priority over other uses. 2. No one has any kind of absolute right to the water flowing through or next to their land. Since scarcity hasn't been such an issue, there's no allotment system of any specific volume of water. 3. Everyone else in the water basin has similar rights to the water flowing through their land, so if you do something that causes harm to their rights (restricting flow by building a dam for instance), then that impeads their flow, and thus their right to access water. 4. If the water flowing through your land is navigable, then navigation is allowed as a priority as well. 5. If you have a well, buyer, beware, it's up to you to test and maintain. Aquifers recharge fast enough that they are not a concern from the legal point of view. 5.5 if you are deliberately causing foreseeable harm, for instance, digging a giant well and deliberately pumping out huge amounts of water to cause somebody else's well to run dry, that's a different story.
Pennsylvania water rights are ruled by common law. It basically boils down to, you don't actually own the water in any specific amount, everybody else on the river/ lake has comparable access and rights, so if you do anything that impacts their ability to use the water, that is cause for a lawsuit. Groundwater is pretty private , aquifers recharge faster than the discharge here, historically anyway, and as such, unless something egregious and specific is done, such as deliberately drilling a larger deeper well that undercuts somebody else's well and causes it to run dry, you'll be pretty much in the clear for all domestic uses. Domestic uses in private have priority, than anything that's navigable has navigation as a second priority, and then the remainder can be used for other uses. However, that water is supposed to be tied to the land, and as such can't be shipped off property without some other legal loopholes to jump through. Here's a pretty accessible document: files.dep.state.pa.us/water/bsdw/WaterAllocation/water_law_review_022806.pdf
You have one of the best geography / earth science channels on all of the internet thank you !
@user-ym6dl8tq6u I'm so glad you are enjoying my videos! You let me know if you ever have any questions. Sometimes people set me in what turn out to be really interesting directions.
Hey Dr Emily, I think that the hotspot you are calling Allentown is actually the Wyoming Valley, which includes Scranton and Wilkes - Barre. It's a lower elevation area surrounded by mountains. Tends to be warmer there than the surrounding region and it's filled with cities and towns, making a heat island and GHG increase area.
@rollinswitch thanks for this explanation! That makes total sense if what we've visualizing there is a marked low elevation patch with pretty dense population. Appreciate your help!
Great job! :)
One other thing I'd like to add as a resident, many of the places that would have had serious flooding already experienced that in the past. Many low-head dams were running throughout the state to povide recreation, support logging and occasionally generate power. The very large floods that did hit in the past either eroded away or caused the destruction of sub-optimal dams and the construction of resiliency measures in several locations. As horrific as some of those disasters of the past were, they also have helped position us to be resilient when it comes to flooding in the future. For instance, the levy around the Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg area hasn't really been called upon since it's been constructed due to the fact that there are no dams upstream that are liable to collapse and send a wall of water down. Thank you for this thorough overview, I really appreciate the tools that you've shown us
@victorquesada7530 thanks for these interesting ground notes. Knowing the history of a place, especially around hydrology, and what resilience is already in the build environment- super important background!
These are such fantastic videos, thanks so much for your work
@nmilkhotel77 you're welcome, and thanks for your kind words! I'm grateful to be able to do this work
I wonder if you may consider building a tool to connect users who are hunkering down and building resilience in an area to connect with each other
@DarthNehimis a fair number of people are connecting on the Discord- I think there's an updated link in this video description.
We're working on a web upgrade & part of that plan- as we move towards the fall -is to make more of a focus on helping people in different areas connect. I hear from a lot of people who are interested in that on-the-ground connection.
Is there any way to predict how # of sunny days (vs cloud cover) will be impacted? For example, we often think of moving to Pittsburgh but my husband has seasonal affective disorder and it is depressingly overcast there.
@lmp23612 this is a question that is important to many people! I don't have a direct answer- like, a good tool that would actually get you the data-based info you want- but I have a proxy that I hate so much I don't use it.
I'm sure now you're tempted lol. But if we can get some insight, why not? Here's the best suggestion I can make.
If you go to the US Climate Resilience Toolkit and click on "climate projections", it launches the Climate Explorer. Use the map rather than graph function and map "dry days". Pin your future scenario at 2050 high emissions and use the slider to see how the number of days with no precipitation will change. If they go down, you probably have some decrease in cloud cover. If they go up, probably some increase.
Have you seen some of the Mexican and Central American record temperatures. They are crazy! When I took meteorology my professor said those high temperatures were only possible on our planet in very few places and were caused by the adiabatic process. I guess we have to worry about living on the east side of mountain ranges now.
On 9 May, in Observatorio de Tacubaya/Mexico City the temperature reached 34.3°C, a new all-time record high temperature for this weather station; and Gallinas, eastern Mexico, recorded the 51.1 °C. I think that is 124 Fahrenheit.
I am confused about the facts on latent energy of phase change because Gallinas mexico is on the green side of the mountain. I thought the dry side got the crazy temperatures from the adiabatic process.
@BenHuttash that's terrifying. Like, all of the information you shared in these comments is terrifying! Especially with your background from your studies, it sounds like this may be another area where we're seeing seriously unexpected phenomena. I'm "hearting" all these comments because I think other people will want to see this information.
Hey Dr.Emily looks like your assessment of the Arizona hills and Mts north of Phoenix was spot on..As you know Phoenix has seen temps in the 105-110 range 1 month earlier then average this year and because of that heat it has made the hills and mtn areas north of there into a tinderbox..Unfortunately we are going to see increasing fire danger as our summers heat up on the way to 2C..just amazing and scary at the same time..
@michaelshiessl8357 a full month earlier?! I tell you, I would rather these predictions not be accurate, but the NCA5 1.5C projections sure appear to be spot on for where we are today... Hope we get as many years as possible before 2C.
The impact on so many living things has to be terrible there in Arizona. Think of what that would mean for everything's water needs. Regarding fire- in some places, you can see how there's landscape to come after fire. That you could have grasslands instead of forest. But in some of the deserts, the increased heat and the fires are killing even the microorganism crusts that hold the soil together. We just don't have a North American analog for what comes next. Those transforming deserts, it is hard to understand what they will become.
@@AmericanResiliency Yes Emily I have a cousin who lives in Glibert AZ a suburb of Phoenix...he's been there 20 years and he said May is in the mid to high 90s and temps in June are normally high 90s to 100 maybe 102..this year in June they have seen 112-113 a full 10 degrees up..those are normally mid July and August temps..he noticed on his electric bill too which was higher because of the heat..I told him you know that if power were to go out in summer that there would be tens of thousands of people that would die!! He said that's scary!he was up hiking in May too and talked to a ranger because he noticed a lot of brown trees in low mtns areas of 4,500- 5,000 feet..The ranger said its the heat that's stressing the trees and bark beetles have come into the picture and are killing trees just like they have in the high Sierras of Calif..it reminded me of recently going to Yosemite Valley and used to see green trees now brown dead trees are interlaced with the green ones..Again those beetles that thrive in warmer temperatures..Just another cause and effect of our warming planet.
@@michaelschiessl8357 that's so sad to hear about the pines, if not unexpected.
My aunt lives near Yosemite, a ways down the mountain- outside of Coarsegold. I went and saw her about twice a year while I was studying at ASU. Seeing the pine habitat there change so quickly, seeing her whole community's landscape transform completely in five years, it had a big impact on me.
Thinking about Gilbert AZ reminded me of the Riparian Preserve there- Water Ranch. If you go visit your cousin- if you haven't gone for a little hike through that preserve, the birding is just incredible.
@@AmericanResiliency great idea maybe next spring I will..I did go to the Arizona botanical gardens a couple years ago lots of native cactus and floral gardens..And a screened off Butterfly pavilion which has thousands of species of Butterflys inside it...Magical place!!
@@michaelschiessl8357 that place is incredible!
I'm from Philadelphia. I'm glad to hear this good news.
@dianewallace6064 if you're a little away from the water, I'd feel confident digging in in Philadelphia. I really do think it has the best outlook of any major east coast city- it will be very interesting to see what happens in your city!
@@AmericanResiliency Thank you, very interesting. 🙂
@AmericanResiliency The aging and in places crumbling infrastructure is a concern even at current level, but in terms of climate change itself, it seems like we're doing "good" (relatively).
@@JCurcio let's get real for a minute here. America met Philadelphia through "Always Sunny". What we saw in that show- your city is clearly pre-staged in the mildly apocalyptic style perfect for our climate future. ;-)
More seriously, Chicago also has some seriously crumbling infrastructure, and that city is also a great climate bet. I do think we will see more infrastructure investment going to areas based on climate outlook. I'll be doing the New Jersey outlook in a few weeks. You'll see, Philadelphia is looking great compared to anything in a HUGE developed area just north of you all.
The only issue with Pennsylvania is you won't own your water.
@JEffinger the state by state variation on water is so wild. Mind sharing how it works in PA?
@@AmericanResiliency I am not sure what the above poster means by "you won't own your water" exactly, but there are some good nuances to consider.
An accessible document I found
here files.dep.state.pa.us/water/bsdw/WaterAllocation/water_law_review_022806.pdf
seemed to sum up the following points:
Tl;Dr - Don't be a jerk and steal other people's water, or flood their land, by messing with the current hydrological system. As long as you're not causing harm, there's more than enough water to go around
1. If you have water flowing next to or on your property, you can take from it for normal household activities (dirty water can't just flow downstream unimpeded, for example). These activities have priority over other uses.
2. No one has any kind of absolute right to the water flowing through or next to their land. Since scarcity hasn't been such an issue, there's no allotment system of any specific volume of water.
3. Everyone else in the water basin has similar rights to the water flowing through their land, so if you do something that causes harm to their rights (restricting flow by building a dam for instance), then that impeads their flow, and thus their right to access water.
4. If the water flowing through your land is navigable, then navigation is allowed as a priority as well.
5. If you have a well, buyer, beware, it's up to you to test and maintain. Aquifers recharge fast enough that they are not a concern from the legal point of view.
5.5 if you are deliberately causing foreseeable harm, for instance, digging a giant well and deliberately pumping out huge amounts of water to cause somebody else's well to run dry, that's a different story.
Pennsylvania water rights are ruled by common law.
It basically boils down to, you don't actually own the water in any specific amount, everybody else on the river/ lake has comparable access and rights, so if you do anything that impacts their ability to use the water, that is cause for a lawsuit.
Groundwater is pretty private , aquifers recharge faster than the discharge here, historically anyway, and as such, unless something egregious and specific is done, such as deliberately drilling a larger deeper well that undercuts somebody else's well and causes it to run dry, you'll be pretty much in the clear for all domestic uses.
Domestic uses in private have priority, than anything that's navigable has navigation as a second priority, and then the remainder can be used for other uses. However, that water is supposed to be tied to the land, and as such can't be shipped off property without some other legal loopholes to jump through.
Here's a pretty accessible document:
files.dep.state.pa.us/water/bsdw/WaterAllocation/water_law_review_022806.pdf
Hell yeah! Time to get weird.
@davidwatson7604 & great territory for continued weirdness in this outlook ;-)
Proud to be boring. 😂
@hhollyd66 in these times especially, boring is the best!!