Climate change is not letting you walk in peace

Climate change is slowly destroying our surroundings and you experiment it every day but you haven’t realized until now.

I am sure that on your daily way home you encounter with annoying diversions or constructions that block your safe path or your cool view of a nice old building (see the case of the incoming 32-year restoration of the Westminster Palace).

 That is an issue that we have assumed as normal since our invasion to nature with paved roads and steel structures is in constant fight with the natural forces such as thermal expansions, water erosion, chemical corrosion and more. And climate change is an amplifier of these destructive processes, so as a consequence we have experienced an increment of closed roads, diverted paths and construction platforms over our heads in recent years.

Road closed in London. Source: Flickr user asoria73

THE DAMAGING FACTORS

There are several factors that cause buildings and roads deterioration which eventually implies a restoration process and a road closed that could affect you directly. The three most important factors are:

Storms. A storm causes damage to buildings by the direct physical impact of the water that carries and the strong winds that could accompany it. A study says that a single storm over Northwest Europe could cause up to 7 billion US$, and with an increment of storm intensity by 2% the actual damage could be increased up to 80%. The climate change scenarios over Europe project around 1-9% increment of storm intensity, so the scenario is gloomy. 

Moisture. The combination of parameters as temperature and moisture of air parcels are factors that drive most of the damage on building facades by water penetration in the materials. Warmer parcels could retain more water vapor and according to Vahid and colleagues, we can expect an increment of water accumulation in facades up to 41%  in the near future under climate change scenarios. 

Temperature. Some materials have a large sensitivity to temperature changes, and in a warmer world the previous calculations that used to work well taking into account the normal thermal expansion will start to fail. This is particularly important in paved roads, where expansions tear apart the concrete due to the continuous exposure to radiation. Santillan, Salete and Toledo calculated a 100% increment in annual concrete displacement under the worst climate change scenario.

Div / ersion. Source: Flickr user Tamar Gewurts

ADAPTATION

We are fortunate to have a place to live and we should all look after its conservation in the future. Paint regularly the façade to avoid moisture penetration and use light colors to reflect as much radiation as possible, check for internal leaks and prepare yourself in case there are natural hazards that could possibly damage your house or the building where you live.

Moreover, in the international arena, there are already increasing regulations in building construction in order to adapt to the changing conditions of our environment and to mitigate the problem.

So next time you get diverted by a closed road think about how can you block the way to climate change. Read you in the next one!