Speaking of Amtrack with such fast news cycle, did they find out the cause of two recent crashes (I believe New Jersey /Connecticuit) ? Ine over some oassage-bridge. I cant find anything on it anymore.
Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor
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Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor
#52This is nothing compared to the estimated $3.5 billion to redirect the tracks underground in San Diego. Coastal bluff failures are occurring within several feet of the tracks on a regular basis. I spend time at this beach and I don't know how this track will be viable in a couple years, with or without rising sea levels. Once it is deemed unsafe, San Diego will be completely cut off by rail.
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sd-del-mar-bluf...
Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor
#53> The report’s authors estimated the initial cost of protecting the study area to be $78 million, based on the premise that water levels around Wilmington would rise 2 feet by 2050. That's a drop in the bucket compared to Amtrak's $38 billion maintenance backlog or the $13 billion Hudson tunnel project. Out of all the potential effects of climate change, this seems like one of the least worrisome -- we even know how…
>this seems like one of the least worrisome -- we even know how to fix it already! The biggest struggle with climate change (in the US at least) is trying to convince businesses that they're going to be impacted financially. If anything we need more industry-specific reporting to try to show companies how ignoring climate change will impact their bottom line.
Amtrak is weirdly a company that will suffer from climate change and could actually start addressing it (they end up shipping the vast majority of coal and could at least tax the movement of that good to recoup this expense) but most companies that will be hit by the effects of climate change won't be significantly contributing to it.
Industries that see ever more profit in fields with high externalities won't have direct a motivation to address those externalities even if they're aware of them - assuming they're unaware in any way.
(aside, coal isn't actually that terrible in terms of contribution to climate change, but reliance on it is definitely contributing, there may be bigger fish but this one has a good bit of meat on it)
Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't forget to add airport overhead and potentially the time it takes to get to airport over train station (if you live in the city), getting through security, boarding the plane, waiting to depart, etc. Might not even be a time savings when it's all said and done. For me, living in Boston, going to NYC on the NEC a lot, I still prefer the train, even though it's expensive (I just went to NYC for thanksgiving), some…
The Northeast corridor is one thing, but the rest of the country has an entirely different experience with Amtrak. I once took a train from Pittsburgh to Chicago which was scheduled to depart at 8 AM. Instead we ended up boarding at noon, and apparently this is a completely typical delay. I hate airports, but the unimaginable volatility of Amtrak will more than erase the benefit of not trudging through airport securi…
I assume the NEC is a pretty special case for Amtrak. It would be interesting to see what % revenue for Amtrak comes for the NEC, too. It's such a cornerstone to NE travel. Sold out often, etc.
Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately no, not here. The metaphor I've heard is continent as couch cushion: the glacier was "sitting" on the upper part of North America, pushing up the edges. Now that weight is gone, the coasts are dropping slightly.
Ah, that’s interesting and believable. Do you know where you heard that? I found this article, which talks about a slightly different effect: If Antarctic ice melts more quickly than arctic ice, then the Antarctic land rebound will shove southern-hemisphere water north, raising sea levels in the northern hemisphere. The opposite effect happens if arctic ice melts before Antarctic ice. https://www.theguardian.com/comm…
The article doesn't even mention the effect of gravity, which is also significant. Ocean water is currently gravitationally attracted to the ice caps, and when an ice cap disappears, all that "bunched up" water will spread around the globe. This effect reduces sea level rise in a large area around the ice cap, and increases it everywhere else.
This other article in The Guardian does mention it: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2018/...
Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
>this seems like one of the least worrisome -- we even know how to fix it already! The biggest struggle with climate change (in the US at least) is trying to convince businesses that they're going to be impacted financially. If anything we need more industry-specific reporting to try to show companies how ignoring climate change will impact their bottom line.
Amtrak is weirdly a company that will suffer from climate change and could actually start addressing it (they end up shipping the vast majority of coal and could at least tax the movement of that good to recoup this expense) but most companies that will be hit by the effects of climate change won't be significantly contributing to it. Industries that see ever more profit in fields with high externalities won't have d…
> they end up shipping the vast majority of coal
You may be thinking of the entity that used to be known as Conrail. Amtrak is passenger only.
Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is astounding how spot on it has all been. The data is so crystal clear.
I keep seeing charts that say otherwise: https://cei.org/sites/default/files/Figure%201.JPG . This suggests the models are not accurate. Who is right?
There’s a good analysis of what seems to be the same chart (and more like it) here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/05/compar...
TL;DR: it is using every trick in the book to mislead.
Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor
#58I was on a road trip throughout a lot of different parts of America last month. A park ranger in Big Bend told me that a tributary creek of the Rio Grande was a hundred feet wide, when normally you can just jump over it. A lakeside highway rest area in North Carolina was flooded up to a permanently mounted bench and trash can.
Huh? Big bend is nowhere near sea level..
Rising temperatures melting glacial/mountain ice more dramatically contributing to river water carry? I'm not saying that's specifically the case, just throwing out a possible hypothesis. Plenty of others exist (bad rainy season, tributary re-routing due to industry, removal of forested areas that would have previously soaked up water, etc).
Could be a global warming thing, could be a seasonal thing, could be anything really.
Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor
#59The US east coast has post-glacial rebound and Atlantic meridional overturning circulation slowdown to compound their sea-level problems. But most the rise is nothing special compared the rest of the world, which is the worst part of this.
Calculating what the sea level rise will be if certain amount of ice melts is quite complicated because of gravitational attraction due to the large mass of the ice, changes in ocean circulation due to the temperature and saltfree content of ice meltwaters, change in the earths axis of rotation due to ice melt, change in ocean currents, etc.
When part of the Greenland ice sheet melts the global mean sea level rises, but it is likely to cause sea level drops in some places around the northern Atlantic. How and where is going to be almost impossible to model and we will just have to wait and see how it plays out. Journal articles here [1,2]
[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-010-9935-... [2] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/201...
Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is astounding how spot on it has all been. The data is so crystal clear.
I keep seeing charts that say otherwise: https://cei.org/sites/default/files/Figure%201.JPG . This suggests the models are not accurate. Who is right?
Notice that all the graphs in the previous charts have that weird step where warming stops for while around 2005 then suddenly shoots up after 2015 to get back to predicted levels? Your graphs end at 2014.