When will Suvarnabhumi prepare for Global Warming?

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fountainhall

When will Suvarnabhumi prepare for Global Warming?

Post by fountainhall »

An article in today's Guardian makes clear the problems facing air travellers as a result of global warming. Some relate to heat. The hotter the weather, the less dense the air and the more problems for aircraft taking off. When temperatures soared above 48C at Phoenix last summer, 50 flights had to be cancelled. With reduced lift, the only way those planes could have taken off would have been with a longer runway.

Once you finally get into the air, expect rougher rides. Stronger winds are creating greater shear in the jet stream. This will also affect flight times by making flying west even longer and flying east even shorter.

Low lying airports will be affected by rising tides. As the article points out -
many runways are in places they really shouldn’t be . . . many airports are built on flat, low-lying land, by the ocean or in drained swamps. Such places can be hard to drain and vulnerable to rising sea levels and more intense storms.
Water on La Guardia's runways closed the airport for three days after the 12 foot storm surge of Hurricane Sandy. Singapore is raising its latest terminal 5.5 meters above sea level. Hong Kong is constructing a 13 km wall around its third runway now being constructed in the sea off the existing runways.

Other major airports at risk are Suvarnabhumi, both Shanghai airports, London City and the Kansai airport in the sea off Osaka. After the 2011 floods closed Don Mueang, a wall was built around at least part of the airport.

Image
Don Mueang - photo: Narong Sangnat/EPA

Is the AOT doing anything Suvarnabhumi? I've heard nothing.
Whether the threat is too much heat for take-off, too much ice to stay in the air or too much water to land, most airports and airlines are approaching climate change as a problem they will address as it arises. But the stark truth . . . is that the future is now
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... air-travel
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Re: When will Suvarnabhumi prepare for Global Warming?

Post by Gaybutton »

fountainhall wrote:Is the AOT doing anything Suvarnabhumi? I've heard nothing.
I'm not sure what AOT can do. What would you suggest?
fountainhall

Re: When will Suvarnabhumi prepare for Global Warming?

Post by fountainhall »

I’d do the same as at Don Mueang - surround it with a wall. Building the airport on a swamp close to the sea will inevitably mean flooding - eventually.
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Re: When will Suvarnabhumi prepare for Global Warming?

Post by mahjongguy »

"When will Suvarnabhumi prepare for Global Warming?"

When pigs fly, in TG First Class.
Jun

Re: When will Suvarnabhumi prepare for Global Warming?

Post by Jun »

Gaybutton wrote:
fountainhall wrote:Is the AOT doing anything Suvarnabhumi? I've heard nothing.
I'm not sure what AOT can do. What would you suggest?
The obvious & robust ways are to:
Resurface the runways a good 1m above the existing level or build a dyke all the way around & have some high capacity pumps.

My preferred option is the resurfacing, but that's difficult when a 2 runway airport is operating somewhere near capacity. As Suvarnabhumi is a relatively new development, of course they really should have package protected for a third runway, if not a fourth. So the third runway can be built further off the ground, then they can close one of the other two to allow resurfacing.

As for the terminal, well most of the action seems to be off the ground & I hope the railway link is properly drained.
Brooklyn Bridge

Re: When will Suvarnabhumi prepare for Global Warming?

Post by Brooklyn Bridge »

Maglev to and from U-Tapao.
fountainhall

Re: When will Suvarnabhumi prepare for Global Warming?

Post by fountainhall »

Jun wrote:My preferred option is the resurfacing, but that's difficult when a 2 runway airport is operating somewhere near capacity.
I just cannot see that working. Although a third runway is supposed to be in the works, goodness knows when it might be ready. But if you raise the existing runways by as much as a meter, you have also to raise all the boarding gate areas. My guess is this will almost certainly result in trouble with the boarding gates themselves. And unless you protect the terminal building, the basement will be flooded. I suspect much of the plant equipment is actually located down there. Also, constant exposure to water should almost certainly cause eventual damage to the structure of the building itself.

I can see no alternative to a wall. But since BKK is built on a swamp, what happens when when water starts to seep in under that wall? It rather illustrates the stupidity of building on a swamp in the first place and then having a span of 33 years between land purchase and completion. Who made their fortunes from the land purchase, I wonder?
Jun

Re: When will Suvarnabhumi prepare for Global Warming?

Post by Jun »

fountainhall wrote:
Jun wrote:My preferred option is the resurfacing, but that's difficult when a 2 runway airport is operating somewhere near capacity.
I just cannot see that working. Although a third runway is supposed to be in the works, goodness knows when it might be ready. But if you raise the existing runways by as much as a meter, you have also to raise all the boarding gate areas. My guess is this will almost certainly result in trouble with the boarding gates themselves.
My guess is the boarding gates are a minor issue. At most airports, the walkway slopes down to the plane. So after raising the ground level, the walkway bay be horizontal or sloping up. A minor issue.

Any basement is probably already below the water table, as for that matter, will be the basements in many of the buildings in Bangkok. I expect some good tanking & a perimeter wall would fix that. Maybe some countermeasures would be needed for baggage handling, but changing the height of a conveyor should not be insurmountable.

Of course, I imagine Thailand will ignore it until the airport IS closed by flooding.
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Re: When will Suvarnabhumi prepare for Global Warming?

Post by thewayhelooks »

"My guess is the boarding gates are a minor issue."

Nonsense. I don't know about you but many is the time I have had to board a bus and been driven around the airport to the plane (always Thai Airways) parked in the middle of nowhere. It's been going on for years. If it happens to be pouring with rain, too bad.
fountainhall

Re: When will Suvarnabhumi prepare for Global Warming?

Post by fountainhall »

It's fact that BKK has too few boarding gates. It's one problem of an overlong planning time, although greater than anticipated growth in traffic will have played a role. What really annoys me is that the AOT sits on its collective fat arse and does absolutely nothing about it. Every morning I go out I see 20 - 30 aircraft waiting to be boarded from buses on the east side parking area. It's the same with A380 gates. The AOT knows perfectly well there are more A380s coming in to BKK and that the late evening slot is peak for those aircraft. So instead of the minimal cost of adapting existing gates, some now A380s have to park at gates for smaller aircraft with only two jetways. Unloading 600 passengers from an Emirates A380 takes a lot longer than the 140 or so from an B737.

Since BKK opened, Hong Kong has opened up two new terminals with lots of jetways. Busing to or from an aircraft there is rare. But then Hong Kong people are extremely good at thinking ahead and anticipating. Hence the third runway is already under construction. And where is BKK's much discussed third runway?
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