TITLE:
Hurricane Camille 1969 and Storm-Triggered Landslides in the Appalachians and a Perspective in a Warmer Climate
AUTHORS:
Diandong Ren
KEYWORDS:
Extreme Precipitation, Climate Change, Landslides, Flash Floods, Endemic Salamanders to Appalachians, Ecosystem in Mountains, Tropical Cyclone Remnants and Extra-Tropical Transition, SEGMENT-Landslide, Blue Mountain Ecosystem
JOURNAL NAME:
International Journal of Geosciences,
Vol.7 No.1,
January
29,
2016
ABSTRACT: This study analyzes
storm-triggered landslides in the US Appalachians, in the current geological
setting. Concave valleys that favor the convergence of surface runoff are the
primary locales for landslides. If the slopes are weathered to the same degree
and have the same vegetation coverage, slope orientation (azimuthal) is not
critical for slope stability. However, it is found that for the region south of
the Black Mountains (North Carolina), north-facing slopes are more prone to
slide, because, for the regions not limited by water availability (annual
precipitation), the northern slopes usually are grass slopes. For the slopes of
the Blue Ridge Mountains, south facing slopes are more prone to slide. Gravity
measurements over the past decade reveal that geological conditions, the chute
system and underground cracks over the region are stable. Future changes in
storm-triggered landslide frequency are primarily controlled by changes in
extreme precipitation. Thus, a series of ensemble climate model experiments is
carried out to investigate possible changes in future extreme precipitation
events, using a weather model forced by atmospheric perturbations from ensemble
climate models. Over 50 locations are identified as prone to future landslides.
Many of these locales are natural habitats to the Appalachian salamanders. In a
future warmer climate, more severe extreme precipitation events are projected
because of increased atmospheric water vapor and more frequent passages of
tropical cyclone remnants. There is also a likely shift of tropical cyclone
tracks and associated extreme precipitations, and the cluster center of
Appalachians’s scarps is expected to move westward, with ecological
consequences for the endemic salamanders.