Floods just pummeled Washington, D.C. and the footage is wild
Even the White House is leaking.
Potent storms deluged the Washington, D.C. area Monday morning, marooning drivers atop their vehicles, transforming boulevards into brown rivers, filling parking garages with water, and dumping rainwater into the Metro.
The swampy capital certainly has a rich history of pummeling storms and flash floods, though the heaviest downpours have shot up by over 70 percent in the Northeast and 27 percent in the Southeast since the late 1950s. In large part, this is because today's atmosphere holds more water vapor than decades ago. Specifically, for every 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming, the air can hold 7 percent more water -- resulting in more heavy rain events. Earth has already warmed by more than 1 degree C since 1880.
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The immediate consequences of such pummeling precipitation are flash floods. As meteorologist Steve Bowen pointed out via Twitter, a river in Alexandria, Virginia rose more than 11 feet in an hour, and Reagan International Airport recorded 3.3 inches of rain over a 60-minute period -- an event that has around just a 1 percent chance of occurring in any single year.
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Though extreme weather events will still happen regardless of how much humanity disrupts the atmosphere, heavy rain events are now expected to increase in frequency and intensity over most parts of the U.S. It's a consequence of the highest atmospheric levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in at least 800,000 years, though likely millions of years.
It's like "doping the weather," NASA climate scientist Kate Marvel explained after two "1,000-year storms" hit Maryland in less than two years.
"Projections of future climate over the U.S. suggest that the recent trend towards increased heavy precipitation events will continue," noted the National Climate Assessment, a congressionally-mandated report produced by over 300 scientists.
Mark was the science editor at Mashable. After working as a ranger with the National Park Service, he started a reporting career after seeing the extraordinary value in educating people about the happenings on Earth, and beyond.
He's descended 2,500 feet into the ocean depths in search of the sixgill shark, ventured into the halls of top R&D laboratories, and interviewed some of the most fascinating scientists in the world.
