hummmm sooner than we think. Many links at the site in the story, best use the liink.

Global warming to affect transport By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer
Tue Mar 11, 11:03 PM ET

Global warming to affect transport - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON - Flooded roads and subways, deformed railroad tracks and weakened bridges may be the wave of the future with continuing global warming, a new study says.
Climate change will affect every type of transportation through rising sea levels, increased rainfall and surges from more intense storms, the National Research Council said in a report released Tuesday.

Complicating matters, people continue to move into coastal areas, creating the need for more roads and services in the most vulnerable regions, the report noted.

"The time has come for transportation professionals to acknowledge and confront the challenges posed by climate change and to incorporate the most current scientific knowledge into the planning of transportation systems," said Henry Schwartz Jr., past president and chairman of the engineering firm Sverdrup/Jacobs Civil Inc., and chairman of the committee that wrote the report.

The report cites five major areas of growing threat:

• More heat waves, requiring load limits at hot-weather or high-altitude airports and causing thermal expansion of bridge joints and rail track deformities.

• Rising sea levels and storm surges flooding coastal roadways, forcing evacuations, inundating airports and rail lines, flooding tunnels and eroding bridge bases.

• More rainstorms, delaying air and ground traffic, flooding tunnels and railways, and eroding road, bridge and pipeline supports.

• More frequent strong hurricanes, disrupting air and shipping service, blowing debris onto roads and damaging buildings.

• Rising arctic temperatures thawing permafrost, resulting in road, railway and airport runway subsidence and potential pipeline failures.

The nation's transportation system was built for local conditions based on historical weather data, but those data may no longer be reliable in the face of new weather extremes, the report warns.

The committee said proper preparation will be expensive and called on federal, state and local governments to increase consideration of climate change in transportation planning and construction.

The report notes, for example, that drier conditions are likely in the watersheds supplying the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes. The resulting lower water levels would reduce vessel shipping capacity, seriously impairing freight movements in the region, such as occurred during the drought of 1988.

Meanwhile, California heat waves are likely to increase wildfires that can destroy transportation infrastructure.

The outlook isn't all bad, however.

The report says marine transportation could benefit from more open seas in the Arctic, creating new and shorter shipping routes and reducing transport time and costs.

The report was prepared by the Transportation Research Board and the Division on Earth and Life Studies of the National Research Council. The groups are part of the National Academy of Sciences, an independent agency chartered by Congress to advise the government on scientific matters.

Sponsors of the study were the Transportation Research Board, the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, the Transportation Department, the Transit Cooperative Research Program, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers.

__________________
Yea can't keep the words of your great leader.

Prophet Muhammad - “Do you love your creator? Love your fellow-beings first.”

Plenty here. Climate Change | U.S. EPA

Government reports sound alarm on global warming | ajc.com[/url]

The early signs: Global Warming: Early Warning Signs

or this story below.

Government reports sound alarm on global warming | ajc.com[/url]

Government reports sound alarm on global warming

By CORNELIA DEAN
New York Times

Published on: 03/12/08

Sea level rise and other changes fueled by global warming threaten roads, rail lines, ports, airports and other important infrastructure, according to new government reports, and policy-makers and planners should act now to avoid or mitigate their effects.

While increased heat and "intense precipitation events" threaten these structures, the greatest, most immediate potential impact is coastal flooding, according to one of the reports, by a panel convened by the National Research Council, the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences.


MIKE SALSBURY/The Chronicle
(ENLARGE)
Drivers try to navigate a flooded road west of Chehalis, Wash., in December. Flooded roads and subways, damaged railroad tracks and weakened bridges may be the wave of the future with continuing global warming, the National Research Council reported Tuesday.

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Another study, a multiagency effort led by the Environmental Protection Agency, sounds a similar warning on coastal infrastructure but adds that natural features like beaches, wetlands and freshwater supplies are also threatened by encroaching saltwater.

The reports are not the first to point out that rising seas are a major threat. But they offer detailed assessments of vulnerability in the relatively near term. Both note that coastal areas are thickly populated, economically important and gaining people and investment by the day, even as scientific knowledge of the risks they face increases. Use of this knowledge by policy-makers and planners is "inadequate," the academy panel said.

Noting that 60,000 miles of coastal highways are already subject to periodic flooding, the academy panel called for policy-makers to inventory vulnerable facilities — "roads, bridges, marine, air, pipelines, everything," said Henry G. Schwartz Jr., a member of the National Academy of Engineering and chairman of the panel — and begin work now on plans to protect, reinforce, move or replace on safer ground. Those tasks will take years or decades and tens of billions of dollars, at least, Schwartz said. "We need to think about it now," he said.

The agency report offers three estimates for sea level rise by 2100: about 16 inches a century, a rate it said has already been exceeded; about 2 feet, an estimate many scientists regard as optimistic, and up to 3 feet — something the report says would be catastrophic for wetlands and other coastal features but that is "less than high estimates suggested by more recent publications."

The academy report cited similar estimates. The academy report noted, for example, that airports in many large coastal cities are built in tidal areas, often on fill, making them "particularly vulnerable." In metropolitan New York, Newark, N.J., and LaGuardia Airport are particularly vulnerable, Schwartz said.

__________________
Yea can't keep the words of your great leader.

Prophet Muhammad - “Do you love your creator? Love your fellow-beings first.”

Where I am we have an autumn heat wave (this is in Australia), it's the longest and hottest since records were kept. We have probably another week of it having had it for nine days thus far. Temps have been 38c-40c constantly for nine days. Usually it's in the mid-20 range (centigrade) at this time. I know the denialists will leap up and down and froth but forget it, our governments are dealing with global climate change and we're pressuring them, that's the reality.

GLOBAL WARMING is nothing new ....

20,000 years ago it took GLOBAL WARMING to turn the Ice Age around ...

What is the BIG WOOHOO about?

Nothing in the universe is permanent ... neither is the Earth

__________________
I MUST Be A Negro .... maybe a Caucasian Negro?

Rich White Folks Don't Readily Accept Me Either!

Obama's Preacher implies that ...

Uh oh. The Weather Gods are angry again. Perhaps we should try human sacrifice? Do we still have the necessary pyramids?

Gentlemen, grab your virgins! TO THE LUXOR!

Hell no, sacrafice the hookers! jk

__________________
Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

Funny, did that say that we'd get both more drought and more rain?

__________________
Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

This is where we part ways; hookers put out.

Yeah, but if all the virgins are dead, than the terrorist will think that all the virgins are waiting for them in the afterlife, causing more wars...JK

__________________
Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

Hookers charge!

__________________
Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides