Climate change means more floods, great and localized

The growing realization that ever-more ferocious storms are becoming more common as the result of global warming is forcing government officials to revisit how they respond to natural disasters.

In South Carolina late last year, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster created a special floodwater commission. The group will be tasked with figuring out how to better combat flooding unleashed by hurricanes, rising ocean levels and other rain systems upstream that send rivers and creeks over their banks on the way to the Atlantic Ocean.

Larry Larson is a former director and senior policy adviser for the Association of State Floodplain Managers. He says officials need to start using forecast tools that predict several different scenarios depending on temperature rise, rather than relying on flood maps based on past events.