Another torrential rainfall event in Denver is the latest of four one in one-thousand-year events that struck the United States in just two weeks. That does not mean that a storm of such magnitude “occurs once every thousand years, but rather that in any given year it should have a 0.1 percent chance of it occurring.” According to meteorologists at the Washington Posts Capital Gang, the situation will only worsen as rain events now operate in a warmer atmosphere capable of holding more moisture due to the heating of the globe.

Our infrastructure was not built for a heating climate, and we should expect the unexpected with natural disasters as climate breakdown is a threat multiplier. We are now firmly entrenched in the Anthropocene.

The heavy rainfall has been driven by characteristic summertime moisture pooling along a stalled front draped from the Colorado Rockies into central states sitting atop a heat dome sprawled over the Southern U.S. Such fronts wring the humidity out of the air like someone squeezing out a washcloth. That can lead to rainfall rates of 2 to 3 inches — or more — per hour. These fronts also act like train tracks guiding developing thunderstorms over the same areas repeatedly.

That was the case eight days ago in St. Louis, where 7.87 inches of rain fell in six hours’ time. That prompted flash flood emergencies across the city, and cars inundated by rising floodwaters. Extreme flooding plagued eastern Kentucky just two days later, with 37 people now confirmed dead. President Biden, who visited the region on Monday, has pledged assistance from the federal government in recovery efforts. Another high-end rain event dropped up to 14 inches of rain late last week near Effingham, Ill.

As the atmosphere continues to warm, events of this magnitude will become increasingly common. That will translate to increased economic losses, damage to vulnerable and aging infrastructure, and danger to the public, particularly in urban areas.

In the last two weeks, we’ve now observed four 1-in-1,000 year rain events. That doesn’t mean that level of rainfall occurs once every thousand years, but rather that in any given year it should have a 0.1 percent chance of it occurring.

A limitation of the 1,000-year rainfall metric is that it is based on historical data and on the assumption the climate isn’t changing. As the atmosphere continues to warm, and its capacity to store and transport moisture increases, this metric loses its meaning as previously rare events become more common.

Kentucky flooding was not only exacerbated by a warming atmosphere; strip mining was an additional contributor to the devastation.

James Bruggers writes in Inside Climate News:

Two former state and federal mining regulators say state and federal authorities should investigate the role strip mining played in last week’s  devastating and deadly flooding in eastern Kentucky  and the condition of the mines after the torrential rainfall.

The Kentucky counties, and areas of West Virginia and Virginia, flooded by torrential rains have for decades been heavily logged and strip-mined for coal—land-use practices that dramatically alter the landscape and contribute to flooding. The recent flooding has killed at least 37 people.

With strip mining, trees are the first to go. Then, hundreds of feet of rock may be  blasted away from the tops or sides of mountains to get at underground seams of coal.

“If you get an area that has been strip mined, and the soil has been stripped off, and the upper layers of the soil and rock have been dumped into a valley fill, you have a surface that is not fully vegetated and you get no water retention whatsoever, and that is what causes these flash floods,” said Jack Spadaro, a former top federal mine-safety engineer who works as a consultant for coalfield residents, workers and

Denver, Colorado is flooding. pic.twitter.com/sJXrpCGhPB

Major flash flooding in Death Valley National Park this morning. Approximately two dozen vehicles trapped in mud and rock debris at the Inn at Death Valley. Took nearly 6 hours to get out. #cawx #stormhour pic.twitter.com/3rDFUgY7ws

Parts of St. Louis and eastern Kentucky were inundated by catastrophic #flooding recently. From orbit, @NOAA satellites monitored the storms that produced the devastating #floods and #FlashFloods in both regions. Learn more in today's #EarthFromOrbit: https://t.co/85WHyJFsew pic.twitter.com/0bDNExV04G

The US just experienced its 3rd 1-in-1,000-year rain event in the last week. Southern Illinois saw over a foot of rainfall in under 24 hours, causing severe flash flooding. As our climate warms, floods will become worse as the atmosphere's capacity to hold moisture increases. pic.twitter.com/vrfzxsc4JC

How heavy rainfall terrorizes after a wildfire burns.

From raging inferno to devastating flooding. The #McKinneyFire was hit by severe thunderstorms yesterday, slamming firefighters with violent flash flooding and debris flows. From one natural disaster to the next. pic.twitter.com/kgTQSNqAdr

O/T I had never heard of aquamation.  

Interesting read from Smithsonian Magazine.

At 9 p.m. on New Year’s Day, Samantha Sieber was in her pajamas and watching a movie with her kids when the first call about Desmond Tutu came in. “I answered my cell phone, and it was BBC World News, and they said, ‘we need somebody to explain what aquamation is on live TV in 30 minutes,’” she recalls.

The international press was responding to  reports  that Tutu—the anti-apartheid leader, Nobel laureate, and Anglican archbishop emeritus who  called  climate change “one of the greatest moral challenges of our time”—had requested alkaline hydrolysis, also known as aquamation or water cremation, as an eco-friendly final disposition for his body. So the vice president of research at  Bio-Response Solutions, the world’s largest producer of alkaline hydrolysis machines for the disposition of human remains, sent the kids and dogs to the basement and settled in to explain what she does for a living.

During alkaline hydrolysis, a human body is sealed in a long, stainless-steel chamber, while a heated solution of 95 percent water and 5 percent sodium hydroxide passes over and around it. In low-temperature alkaline hydrolysis, the solution reaches a temperature just below boiling, the process is performed at atmospheric pressure, and the body is reduced over the course of 14 to 16 hours; in a higher-temperature version of the process where the mixture tops 300 degrees Fahrenheit and creates more pressure, the body is reduced in four to six hours. The process dissolves the bonds in the body’s tissues and eventually yields a sterile, liquid combination of amino acids, peptides, salts, sugars and soaps, which is disposed of down the drain at the alkaline hydrolysis facility. The body’s bones are then ground to a fine powder and returned to the deceased person’s survivors, just as the bones that remain after flame cremation are returned to families as ash.