Numbers from the Nepal segment: a monitoring station near the mountain front logged a peak of 5,000 cubic meters per second, and most upstream gauges were destroyed before they could record anything. The speaker estimates the true upstream peak at triple that — about 15,000 m3/s, or roughly 540,000 cubic feet per second. For scale, he cites about 350 million cubic feet per second for the channeling of Grand Coulee. He also defines a 'sverdrup' as ~1 million m3/s, the unit oceanographers use for flows like the Gulf Stream. 🌊
Nepal flood peak estimated at 15,000 m3/s; Grand Coulee flow cited as ~650x greater
Key facts
- A monitoring station near the mountain front in Nepal recorded a peak discharge of 5,000 cubic meters per second during the recent flood; most upstream gauges were washed away before readings could be logged.
- Carlson estimates the upstream peak at three times that figure, roughly 15,000 cubic meters per second, which he converts to about 540,000 cubic feet per second.
- He cites an estimated peak discharge of about 350 million cubic feet per second for the channeling of Grand Coulee, roughly 650 times the Nepal figure.
- A 'sverdrup' is a unit of about 1 million cubic meters per second (roughly 36 million cubic feet per second) coined by oceanographers and marine geologists to describe flows such as the Gulf Stream.
- He argues some megafloods move volumes an order of magnitude greater than a sverdrup.
Sources
thetitan.network
Linked in video description
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