The New York Times (NYT) recently published an article titled “Experts say climate change could cause bridges to 'collapse like tinker toys' Written by Coral Davenport. Various evidences and examples not only refute the error of this statement, but also expose the absurdity of this statement.
These types of wildly false claims have been tried before, such as in 2007 when the I-35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, Minnesota. of:
A former member of the Clinton administration and now a senior fellow at the virtual Clinton think tank the Center for American Progress claimed on Monday that global warming may have been a factor in last week's collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis.
I'm not lying to you.
Joseph Romm, who served as acting assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy in 1997 and principal deputy assistant secretary from 1995 to 1998, published an amazing article on CAP's global warming blog “Climate Progress” Article, titled “Did climate change cause the Minneapolis bridge to collapse?“
Unsurprisingly, the actual cause had nothing to do with climate change at all, but rather a failure of the project to use undersized gussets that were too thin for the load on the bridge:
The investigation revealed that photos of the bridge inspected in June 2003 showed bent gusset plates. On November 13, 2008, the NTSB announced the results of its investigation. The primary cause of the collapse was the undersized gussets, which were 0.5 inches (13 mm) thick. The cause of the design or construction error was the addition of 2 inches (51 mm) of concrete to the pavement over the years, which increased the static load by 20 percent. Another factor was the heavy weight of construction equipment and materials above the weakest point on the bridge at the time of collapse. The load was estimated at 578,000 pounds (262 tons), including sand, water and vehicles.
Therefore, human error and extra weight, rather than climate change, were identified as causes of bridge failure.
Fast forward to now. The New York Times article made a similar claim:
Bridges designed and built decades ago using materials that could not withstand drastic temperature swings are now expanding and contracting rapidly, making them fragile.
“It gets so hot that the parts that hold up the concrete and steel, these bridges actually fall apart like tinker toys,” Dr. Chinoski said.
This year has seen temperatures reach some of the hottest on record, affecting much of America's infrastructure, from highways to runways. But bridges face special risks.
Really? Aren't these bridges designed to handle daily temperature fluctuations? A natural event that happens every day across the seasons? This sounds like a bad plan. Besides the absurdity of this statement, there are two contradictory points to consider.
First, in the United States, we have seen more severe sustained heat waves before, such as in the 1930s, when the July 1936 heat wave hit the American Midwest, with some locations experiencing temperatures over 100°F for up to 14 days. The chart in Figure 1 provided by the US Environmental Protection Agency demonstrates this.
Bridge collapses were not mentioned in many reports of the heat waves of the 1930s, suggesting that the link to extreme heat caused by climate change is false. Otherwise, the heat of the 1930s would have caused the bridge to collapse. However, there were no heat-related reports at all during that period.
Secondly, the article states, “With temperatures this year reaching some of the hottest ever, much of the nation’s infrastructure, from highways to runways, has been affected.” But that’s not true either. The statement used by The New York Times is about global temperatures, not U.S. temperatures. As shown in Figure 2 below, the data comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the United States Climatic Reference Network (USCRN) (widely regarded as the most accurate source of surface temperature data). July 2024 is not the “hottest month in the world.” weather”. Recorded history. “For example, the maximum temperatures in the United States in 2012 and 2005 were higher than in July 2024.
Digging deeper into this article from the New York Times, the Times blamed climate change for the collapse of a railroad bridge connecting Iowa and South Dakota during flooding. Flooding in rivers and streams along and bordering Iowa and South Dakota has been common since such events were recorded in the mid-1800s. Long before climate change became an issue, there were numerous rail bridge collapses in the United States and around the world. Since data shows no increase in the number or severity of flooding events across the United States, particularly in Iowa and South Dakota, there is no evidence that climate change played any role in the collapse of this particular railroad bridge.
The next claim is that concrete on a bridge in Lewiston, Maine, buckled and broke, which the New York Times blamed on “recent swings in temperature and rainfall.”
A look at weather conditions in Lewiston, Maine at the time of the incident shows that while both high and low temperatures were above normal averages for late June, the swings the Times was concerned about were less extreme than normal, with the maximum temperatures The minimum temperature will drop to about 15 degrees by June 2024, instead of the historical average daily temperature of about 20 degrees. (See Figure 3 below).
The high temperature during the third week of June was 95 degrees Fahrenheit, above the normal high for that day but well below the city's all-time high of 99 degrees Fahrenheit, recorded in 1911, 113 years before global warming. Lewiston's June 2024 high was also 10 degrees cooler than the state record high of 105 degrees Fahrenheit set in North Bridgeton, Maine, just 30 miles away, also set in 1911. Temperatures reached this temperature twice.
Since temperatures in Lewiston don't fluctuate much and don't set records, it's implausible that the bridge's concrete cracking and deformation has anything to do with climate change. This may be due to poor construction or, more likely, poor maintenance, a problem on many bridges and overpasses in Maine and throughout the United States, coupled with increased traffic and load due to significant growth in cities and urban populations.
It literally took two minutes of searching on Google to find this data. Clearly, New York Times reporter Coral Davenport went to great lengths to find the facts. Maybe she just didn't know what to do. This kind of hasty reporting, containing speculative claims rather than simple facts, looks like something out of an old TV series twilight saga.
If such an episode aired today, my suggested title would be “Fake Maximus.” This story is pure science fiction.
Originally published in ClimateREALISM
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