UAB professor talks about impact of climate change on Vestavia Hills
Vestavia Hills, like many cities in Birmingham, has struggled with severe flooding over the summer because of heavy rainfall. Patton Creek and Little Shades Creek are flooding zones that businesses and residents in the area have contended with for years, but the heavy showers over the summer have made it worse.
The soil can’t absorb the sheer amount of heavy rain Birmingham has experienced in the summer, said Cinnamon McCulley, communications specialist for the city of Vestavia Hills. She said when the soil can’t absorb the heavy amounts of water, it causes creeks to overflow.
According to an article by WBHM, there’s been a significant increase in rainfall since last year. Alabama normally receives 56 inches of rainfall per year; it has received 60 inches of rainfall since the beginning of the year.
“As the atmosphere is warming, it is becoming more moist, it holds more moisture than it used to,” said Jim McClintock, nationally acclaimed climate scientist and professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “That’s a basic law of weather -— the warmer the air, the more moisture it can retain -— and so as the Earth warms and the atmosphere warms, we’re seeing heavier rains.”
There have been studies in the South that suggest Alabama won’t see more inches of rain per year but more inches of rain over a shorter period of time, McClintock said in an in an opinion piece published by the Anniston Star.
“Moisture-latent air makes downpours more intense, and I don’t know about you, but I can definitely sense them here in Alabama,” McClintock said. “Creeks are overflowing, rivers are overflowing, people who are in my neighborhood are complaining about the erosion of their yards, including mine.
“There’s a lot of examples of creeks overflowing around Vestavia, a classic one is Patton Creek on [U.S.] Highway 31 which has caused major flooding for decades,” McClintock continued. “They did some rebuilding on Patton Creek; this is over from Mark’s Sporting Goods by the bowling alley on the other side. That parking lot used to flood; you’d see the cars floating around.”
Vestavia Hills Public Works has done significant work trying to control flooding, and it’s not as bad as it used to be, but dealing with it in the future will be a challenge because Alabama will get more rain per unit time and will be difficult to keep under control, McClintock said.
McClintock said as the atmosphere continues to warm, caused by the burning of fossil fuels that generates greenhouse gases, there will be more moisture added to the atmosphere. Scientists project that by the end of the century, there will be 2.5 degrees of warming, which might sound underwhelming but it is a lot relative to the entire planet, he said.
He said at the end of his Antarctic climate change lectures, people ask him what they can do as an individual about climate change. “The most important thing you can do as an individual is to vote and vote for somebody who is willing to step up and admit climate change is a problem and that we need to begin to do something about it or it’s not going to get better,” McClintock said.
McClintock said investing in companies that have sustainable practices that are helping the environment, driving hybrid cars and insulating, planting trees, LED light bulbs and talking to people about climate change are also great ways to help the environment.
When talking to people about climate change, McClintock said, it’s important to find common ground. “The way to talk to your neighbors about climate change isn’t to tell them they need to do something like go buy a Prius,” McClintock said. “You want to say ‘Hey, you’re picking your tomatoes a month earlier than you did before. What’s up with that? Why is the neighborhood changing so much, why haven’t we seen any rain in Birmingham in so long?’ If you can get them to think about something that’s in their backyard, then you can begin a dialogue about how climate is changing and why it’s changing and how we might address it.”