Global Warming In the News

The headlines say it all:

• "Wettest July ever ends with deluge"

• "Duke City storms lead to inevitable flooding"

• "Record rain washes out arroyos this morning"

That was in 2006, when rains trashed roads and flooded homes in Martineztown and Barelas. There were many similar headlines in 2004, when rains also damaged parts of the city.

If a report is correct, then Duke City residents better get used to record rains and flooding.

The report, by Environment America, an environmental advocacy group, says the number of extreme storms like those in 2006 has increased 44 percent in New Mexico and 25 percent in the Mountain region from 1948 to 2006.

And those trends are likely to continue to increase as an inevitable consequence of global warming, said Lauren Ketcham, director of Environment New Mexico, the local chapter of Environment America.

"Global warming is already beginning to affect life in New Mexico and around the world," Ketcham said. "Temperatures are rising, extreme weather events are increasing, species are moving or going extinct. This is just one aspect."

And increasingly severe rainstorms don't mean that the West will get wetter. In fact, the total precipitation is predicted to drop - with droughts and warming temperatures punctuated with the predicted severe storms, Ketcham said.

Severe flooding in Martineztown and Barelas in 2004 and 2006 is just a small example of the types of storms increasing across the United States, where incidents have increased by 24 percent, Ketcham said.

"There are many consequences of these events - flooding, crop damage, pollution of waterways with runoff and sewage, mudslides, erosion, environmental and economic damage," Ketcham said.

Data for the study was collected from 3,445 weather stations in 48 states, all of which were missing less than 5 percent of the information for the time period from 1948 to 2006.

The information came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Climatic Data Center.

In New Mexico, things seem particularly severe. The state tied with Connecticut with the seventh-highest increase in severe storms reported during the timeframe.

The highest change overall was Rhode Island, with 88 percent.

But there could be another explanation for the trend, said Deirdre Kann, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque.

"I suspect that much of the increase we've seen in recent years is actually due to an increase in population, as well as an effort on the part of the National Weather Service to better document severe storms," Kann said.

Severe storms aren't categorized unless somebody reports them, and areas in the state were much more rural in 1948, which means storms were less likely to be reported back then, Kann said.

It's not that global warming isn't a real phenomenon, she added. We can see temperature increases across the globe, but it's too soon to connect the storm data to that, Kann said.

"Can we detect global warming? Certainly," Kann said. "Can that be related to this data on storms? To my knowledge there's not enough data yet."

Still, being prepared doesn't hurt, said City Councilor Isaac Benton, who's district was hit hardest by the flooding events in 2006 and 2004.

Benton has worked with city government to prepare a storm surge pond in Tingley Park, in case it happens again.

The land was lowered in spots from 5-10 feet to create a large drainage area. And workers on Monday began work to restore the park with new football and baseball fields, which should be finished in September, Benton said.

"In the event of extreme weather like we had a few years ago, this will hold a storm surge," Benton said.

Martineztown is a bit harder to fix. It will cost between $30 million and $40 million to add surge ponds to the area - because the structure is much different, he said.

"Martineztown is a much more difficult puzzle," Benton said. "We have a park there, but it's not in a good location in terms of draining. There's a multiplicity of issues here."

And even though Kann isn't convinced the data on increased severe storms shows a trend, Ketcham says she's thinks the phenomenon is very real - and something we can do something about.

Even if all carbon emissions stopped today, the data indicates severe storms will continue across the globe, Ketcham said.

But the number could be kept in check if the United States changed the amount of emissions it allows, she said.

The group would like to see carbon emissions cut by at least 15 percent below today's levels by 2020 and by at least 80 percent by 2050. And it would like to see greater use of alternative sources of clean energy, Ketcham said.

"What we really need to see is Washington, D.C., step up and do something on the national level," Ketcham said. "States are doing what they can on their own, but there's a lot more to be done."