More from my conversation with Dr. Jeff Masters.
A number of the places that have been thought of as “climate havens” – areas thought to be minimally exposed to climate risks going forward, have turned out to be, in fact, uniquely and precariously vulnerable. Case in point, Asheville North Carolina, and Northern Vermont.
Jeff and I both live in Michigan, which has some strong advantages in that we access to water, at least the communities that draw directly from the Great Lakes.
There are a lot of communities that rely on ground water, which has vulnerabilities, and a large percentage of the population is dependent on septic fields, increasingly difficult to maintain as precipitation extremes increase.
The Great Lakes also offer a buffer against extremes of heat and cold, although the potential for Lake Effect Snowstorms is enhanced in parts of the western lower peninsula, and parts of the Upper peninsula on Lake Superior.
Last week, when strong windstorms stirred up massive dust clouds and wildfires across the Great Plains, we escaped much of the rash of tornadoes and damaging winds, but got smacked with Beijing-style air quality over much of the state, including the second largest city, Grand Rapids. It brought back fresh memories of the nightmarish toxic pawl that covered much of the east in 2023.
Needless to say, this is not something we have seen historically in the upper midwest, but now, here we are, for the second time in as many years.
There will be no guaranteed safe havens in a climate changed world – the air pollution alerts were a largely unforeseen impact, so far as I know.
More certain is the increasing vulnerability of eastern North America to California style wildfires, which, as evidenced by recent fires in the Southeast, are going to become more frequent.
Much of the upper midwest is heavily forested, and an increasing number of homes are squarely in the Wild Urban interface, vulnerable at some future time when an abrupt dry spell interacts with the right conditions to touch off an expensive tragedy.
In 2007 the Center for Naval Analyses called climate change a “threat multiplier” in terms of international stability. Right now I’d say that Trusk is another threat multiplier in removing any fiscal resilience in the US while protecting fossil fuel interests.