California’s mountains are covered with deep snow that will melt in the near future as temperatures rise. The Los Angeles Times has published a great piece sketching out the challenge. This quote merits some discussion.
As I understand it, “dirty snow” melts fasters as the temperature warms. There will be less flood risk if the snow melt is more “orderly”. What investments can be made to create a more “orderly” snow melt as the outdoor April and May temperatures increase?
The applied adaptation policy agenda here should feature the following steps;
Step #1 What is the geography of the snow pack? Where are the mountains covered with snow and how deep is that snow right now?
Step #2 For different daily temperature paths over the next 4 months (so the temperature high on May 12th 2023, May 13th 2023 etc), how much snow will melt under different temperature scenarios?
Step #3 Given the Mountain topography, where will this water go?
Step #4 For places and communities “down stream”, what early warning systems are in place? What natural strategies and reservoir strategies are in place to capture this water? What steps have been taken to clean drains and other precautionary steps to be ready for this “imported water”?
Step #5 Show some imagination here. In a worst case scenario, what horrible events could occur? If such a scenario is actually playing out, will there be any trigger clues that can be observed in time?
Step #6 Can any “down stream” land owners be incentivized to open up their land to flood and to form a short term “reservoir”? Note that this is the market approach to adapting to disaster risk. This market approach is often missing in public policy discussions! For example, suppose that I own a parcel of land that is “bowl shaped” . Such land could form a natural short term reservoir.
Step #7 Are there some “geo-engineering” experiments that can be launched here? Read this quote from the LA Times piece I cite above. Could California fly planes over the mountains and spray some type of “white spray pain” to keep the white mountains white? As I understand it, such a white color would slow down the melting process. An interesting cost/benefit analysis would arise. There would be costs of this intervention but there would also be benefits. A small experiment would provide new information about the marginal benefits of slowing flooding caused by seasonal warming.
This interesting (and important) flood risk adaptation example raises a key issue. We know that we do not know the full menu of adaptation strategies. A “Silver Lining” of the deep snow pack challenge is that it creates an incentive for California stakeholders to experiment and try out new ideas for adapting. Quantitative economists who write out deterministic economies in their math equations never include this endogenous learning in their models. My “hand waving” counter is to embrace a Hayek perspective that when we have incentives to learn and experiment, we do so and in the process our knowledge frontier shifts out in ways that are often not expected. My adaptation optimism is based on this messy learning process. The key for triggering this learning is self interest and the incentive to continue to thrive in our hotter future!
If you like this argument, read my 2010 and 2021 books that flesh out my adaptation logic.