This doesn’t sound good, does it?
Category: Climate Change
114 degrees
All-time high in Sydney, Australia.
We’re not kidding
This time they really, really mean it:
Global warming is already having a major impact on life in America, a report by US government scientists has warned. The draft version of the US National Climate Assessment reveals that increasing storm surges, floods, melting glaciers and permafrost, and intensifying droughts are having a profound effect on the lives of Americans.
“Corn producers in Iowa, oyster growers in Washington state and maple syrup producers have observed changes in their local climate that are outside of their experience,” states the report.
Health services, water supplies, farming and transport are already being strained, the assessment adds. Months after superstorm Sandy battered the east coast, causing billions of dollars of damage, the report concludes that severe weather disruption is going to be commonplace in coming years. Nor do the authors flinch from naming the culprit. “Global warming is due primarily to human activities, predominantly the burning of fossil fuels,” it states.
The uncompromising language of the report, and the stark picture that its authors have painted of the likely effects of global warming, have profound implications for the rest of the world.
If the world’s greatest economy is already feeling the strain of global warming, and is fearful of its future impact, then other nations face a very worrying future as temperatures continue to rise as more and more greenhouse gases are pumped into the atmosphere.
“The report makes for sobering reading,” said Professor Chris Rapley, of University College London. “Most people in the UK and US accept human-induced climate change is happening but respond by focusing attention elsewhere. We dismiss the effects of climate change as ‘not here’, ‘not now’, ‘not me’ and ‘not clear’.
“This compelling new assessment by the US experts challenges all four comforting assumptions. The message is clear: now is the time to act!”
Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, at the London School of Economics, said: “For those outside the US, this report carries a brutal message because it shows that even the world’s leading economy cannot simply adapt to the impacts of climate change. The problem clearly needs concerted international action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to avoid the worst potential consequences.”
Snakes
Warming up
The credibility of James Inhofe is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.
Last year was the hottest year on record for the contiguous 48 states, marked by near-record numbers of extreme weather events such as drought, wildfire, tornadoes and storms, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
In its annual report, State of the Climate, NOAA reported that the average annual temperature was 55.3 degrees — 3.3 degrees greater than the average temperature for the 20th century. It was also a full degree higher than the previous record-high temperature, set in 1998 — the biggest margin between two record-high temperatures to date.
The report confirmed what many Americans may have suspected over the last year: that extreme weather events are becoming more common. The only year when there were more extreme weather events was 1998, largely because a greater number of tropical cyclones made landfall, NOAA researchers said.
In 2012, the Upper Midwest was hit with floods, the mid-Atlantic with sudden summertime storms, the West with wildfire and the Northeast with Hurricane Sandy, among many other events. Most of the country even now remains in the grip of drought.
For years, climatologists have been reluctant to draw a line from climate change to specific weather events, and the NOAA authors of the report were cautious about making links. But a growing body of research has begun to indicate that climate change creates conditions for the kinds of temperatures and events the United States experienced last year.
‘Exceptional’ heatwave in Australia
I wonder if they’re ever going to connect the dots between the heat and their heavy use of coal:
“The extreme January heat has prompted the Bureau of Meteorology to issue a special climate statement, with further updates planned as the scorching temperatures continue.”
[…] “This event is ongoing with significant records likely to be set,” the bureau statement said. “A particular feature of this heatwave event has been the exceptional spatial extent of high temperatures.”
The final four months of 2012 were the hottest on record for Australia and January is making an early run at adding to the sequence of especially hot weather.
“Australia-wide, and for individual states, we are currently well above average by many degrees,” said Aaron Coutts-Smith, the bureau’s NSW manager for climate services.
Uh uh
I guess I’ll have to move to Florida, where it’s cooler.
Heroes
Two protesters barricaded themselves inside the Keystone XL pipeline today. They were arrested, of course.
Wow
A category 5 typhoon bearing down on the Philippines — the most southerly typhoon on record. Maybe that’s a clue of some kind.
And speaking of, poor California! Another storm on its way?
‘Enormous’
Oh, you know how men exaggerate about size:
On Monday at the UN climate talks in Doha, the US claimed credit for “enormous” efforts on climate change.
Jonathan Pershing, a senior negotiator for the US, said: “Those who don’t know what the US is doing may not be informed of the scale and extent of the effort, but it’s enormous.”
Whether the US has taken enormous steps on climate change is open to debate. What we do know is that we have a newly re-elected President who in his acceptance speech said “We want our children to live in a world without the destructive power of a warming planet”.
In order to tackle climate change, the US cannot continue on a path of relentless oil and gas drilling, as currently espoused in the President’s Energy plan, known as “All of the Above”, which advocates a mix of oil, gas, nuclear, renewables and the contradiction which is clean coal.
As Steve Kretzmann and I pointed out in the aftermath of Obama’s re-election: “The President cannot simultaneously fight climate change and support an All of the Above/Drill Baby Drill energy strategy. It would be like launching a war on cancer while promoting cheap cigarettes for kids. Leadership on climate requires understanding this.”