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Climate Change & Toronto

TOperson said:
I hope you are not seriously questioning whether last night's flooding was serious. I'm sure the people rescued from the flooded GO train don't much care exactly where the water line ended up.
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Why would I question that? Clearly it was serious. I was quick to phone home to make sure my house survived.

The question is, was it evidence of climate change. Looking at the rainfall amounts, it was very localized. Record breaking at Pearson, but only 20 mm at Buttonville and 2 mm at Waterloo, suggests that although localized extremes were very high, it wasn't as significant regional event as Hurricane Hazel. A very different type of storm. And no indication I've seen of it exceeding the predicted floodlines. We expect the Don River to flood. Bayview is designed to be flooded. The flooding of underpasses is normally indicative of a sewer problem, than a 100-year event. I don't see the houses (and streetcars) being washed down the river like we did in Hurricane Hazel.

I'm looking for a quantifiable discussion, rather than a qualitative discussion here.
 
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nfitz said:
Why would I question that? Clearly it was serious. I was quick to phone home to make sure my house survived.

The question is, was it evidence of climate change. Looking at the rainfall amounts, it was very localized. Record breaking at Pearson, but only 20 mm at Buttonville and 2 mm at Kitchener, suggests that although localized extremes were very high, it wasn't as significant regional event as Hurricane Hazel. A very different type of storm. And no indication I've seen of it exceeding the predicted floodlines. We expect the Don River to flood. Bayview is designed to be flooded. The flooding of underpasses is normally indicative of a sewer problem, than a 100-year event. I don't see the houses (and streetcars) being washed down the river like we did in Hurricane Hazel.

I'm looking for a quantifiable discussion, rather than a qualitative discussion here.
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The thread is about preparing Toronto for climate change. Please stay on topic.
 
TOperson said:
The thread is about preparing Toronto for climate change. Please stay on topic.
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It's about climate change in relation to yesterday's storm.

How is looking for a quantitative discussion of the impacts of potential climate change not on-topic?

And what needs to be prepared? I don't see any large-scale damage from yesterday's event. Localized flooding is normally an indication that local sewers and sumps aren't configured to handle a current 100-year or Regional storm event. Remember we've been upgrading things since the 1950s to handle a future Hurricane Hazel event, and this work has not yet been completed. We haven't even removed all the combined sewers yet!

However, instead of try policing the forum, perhaps you could tell us what you think needs changing to deal with climate change, and how this differs from changes necessary to handle the local prescribed Regional storm?
 
It's about climate change in relation to yesterday's storm.
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Wait, what? YOU get to decide the focus of the thread, but not person who started the thread? Pot, meet kettle.
 
The Don should be trenched deeper, or the highway raised, so that every time we get heavy rain it does not flood. Same goes for the train tracks.

Something needs to be done with King St. W. under the rail overpass. It always floods there too.
 
khristopher said:
The Don should be trenched deeper, or the highway raised, so that every time we get heavy rain it does not flood. Same goes for the train tracks.

Something needs to be done with King St. W. under the rail overpass. It always floods there too.
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I must agree that the Don should be trenched and dredged deeper.
 
TOperson said:
I REALLY hope no one thinks Katrina is a model of an effective disaster response.

I didn't say that I thought the government would "abandon" Toronto. But it could easily just be incompetent, not really prepared, or have other crises to deal with at the same time, ultimately giving Toronto an inadequate response.

And I don't think "let's wait until SHTF, and let the government take care of it" is a good plan.
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I'm not talking about when they abandoned the people in the superdome for days. I'm talking once they were out, they were bussed to Houston and other major cities.

FFS, now you're inventing other crises (which are somehow worse than 5 million people without power and being flooded) that the gov't has to deal with as well? Seriously? You're now talking apocalyptic events. Are you mad we don't have plans for an impending meteor strike too? Or an alien invasion?

You're not good with the government plan? Fine make your own plan, if chit hits the fan as bad as you're worried about, no government will be able to help you anyways. I've got my plan, sounds like you need to start thinking of yours.

If you prefer to get the government to change their plan, or update it, write a letter to Harper. I'm sure he'll get right on it since he's a big believer in climate change in the first place........
 
TOperson said:
Wait, what? YOU get to decide the focus of the thread, but not person who started the thread? Pot, meet kettle.
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If this has nothing to do with yesterday's storm, why did you go off topic in the first post?

What would you suggest changing in Toronto to deal with climate change?
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Might better to elevated that stretch of the expressway.

AoD
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Agreed. Digging the Don deeper will make little difference, as you are right near the lake. There's little elevation difference along there already.

These days, you avoid building in floodplains, but if you do, infrastructure like highways is relatively good, as the impact is short-term, leaving little (if any) permanent damage. However there is a bit that does seem to flood too frequently, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to elevate it by a metre or so. I doubt few would notice once it's complete.
 
junior43 said:
FFS, now you're inventing other crises (which are somehow worse than 5 million people without power and being flooded) that the gov't has to deal with as well? Seriously?
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Seriously. Katrina didn't just hit New Orleans, Sandy didn't just hit New York. This is a thread about climate change. It's entirely possible and even likely that if Toronto was having a climate crisis, so would other parts of Ontario.

I don't know how you can separate the Superdome mess from the overall response to Katrina, but the bussing was a mess too. See Spike Lee's documentaries about Katrina. They have some info on this.
 
Worldwide, one of the most significant impacts of climate change is rising ocean levels, and higher storm surges. It was the storm surges that did most of the damage for Sandy and Katrina.

But how do these examples have any physical impact on Toronto? We are much higher than the ocean, and will never get a large storm surge. One of the most significant impacts of local climate change is the prediction of more intense storms, similar to what we had yesterday.
 
TOperson said:
Seriously. Katrina didn't just hit New Orleans, Sandy didn't just hit New York. This is a thread about climate change. It's entirely possible and even likely that if Toronto was having a climate crisis, so would other parts of Ontario.

I don't know how you can separate the Superdome mess from the overall response to Katrina, but the bussing was a mess too. See Spike Lee's documentaries about Katrina. They have some info on this.
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I watched the documentary by Spike Lee. My favourite quote was "Bush doesn't care about black people."
 
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