Category: Global Warming

bookmark_borderExtreme Weather Events: Typhoon Haiyan / Yolanda

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“The climate crisis is madness. We can stop this madness.”

Philippines — One of the world’s most severe storms hit the Philippines. The damage is so massive that it has taken several days just to asses the situation. It appears as though thousands of people lost their lives. Complete towns have been wiped out. The increased intensity of weather events has been linked to global warming.

Typhoon Haiyan by NASA
Typhoon Haiyan by NASA

AFFECTED POPULATION

  • A total of 2,095,262 families (9,679,059 persons) 7,251 barangays in 471 municipalities and 51 cities in 41 provinces of Regions IV-A, IV-B, V, VI, VII, VIII, X, XI and Caraga.
  • A total of 91,657 families (433,300 persons) are being served inside 1,444 evacuation centers.

“In some cases the devastation has been total,” said Secretary to the Cabinet Rene Almendras.

“Reaching the worst affected areas is very difficult, with limited access due to the damage caused by the typhoon to infrastructure and communications,” said UNICEF Philippines Representative Tomoo Hozumi.

“We are seeing a lot of dead throughout the province,” said Brig. Gen. Domingo Tutaan Jr., spokesman for the Philippine armed forces. “I have been in the service for 32 years, and I have been involved with a lot of calamities. I don’t have words to describe what our ground commanders are seeing in the field.”

“Please tell my family I’m alive,” survivor Erika Mae Karakot said. “We need water and medicine because a lot of the people we are with are wounded. Some are suffering from diarrhea and dehydration due to shortage of food and water.”

“We’re afraid that it’s going to get dangerous in town because relief goods are trickling in very slow,” said Bobbie Womack, an American missionary. “I know it’s a massive, massive undertaking to try to feed a town of over 150,000 people. They need to bring in shiploads of food.

“Imagine America, which was prepared and very rich, still had a lot of challenges at the time of Hurricane Katrina, but what we had was three times more than what they received,” said Gwendolyn Pang.

The Philippines government has firmly connected the super typhoon Haiyan with climate change, and urged governments meeting in Poland on Monday to take emergency action to resolve the deadlocked climate talks.

“We cannot sit and stay helpless staring at this international climate stalemate. It is now time to take action. We need an emergency climate pathway,” said Yeb Sano, head of the government’s delegation to the UN climate talks, in an article for the Guardian, in which he challenged climate sceptics to “get off their ivory towers” to see the impacts of climate change firsthand.

“The climate crisis is madness. We can stop this madness. Right here in Warsaw. Typhoons such as Haiyan and its impacts represent a sobering reminder to the international community that we cannot afford to procrastinate on climate action..

“Science tells us that simply, climate change will mean more intense tropical storms. As the Earth warms up, that would include the oceans. The energy that is stored in the waters off the Philippines will increase the intensity of typhoons and the trend we now see is that more destructive storms will be the new norm.”.

Philippines Typhoon Devastation
Philippines Typhoon Devastation / AP

bookmark_borderRealities of Climate Change

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UNITED STATES — Sea level rise is accelerating. The number of large wildfires is growing. Dangerous heat waves are becoming more common. Extreme storm events are increasing in many areas. More severe droughts are occurring in others.

These are just some of the consequences of global warming, which are already having significant and harmful effects on our health, our environment, and our communities.

Unless we take immediate action to address global warming, these consequences will continue to intensify, grow ever more costly, and increasingly affect the entire planet — including you, your community, and your family.

Global warming is happening now.

The planet’s temperature is rising. The trend is clear and unmistakable.

Every one of the past 35 years has been warmer than the 20th century average. The 12 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998. 2012 was the hottest year ever recorded for the contiguous United States.

Globally, the average surface temperature has increased more than one degree Fahrenheit since the late 1800s. Most of that increase has occurred over just the past three decades.
We are the cause.

We are overloading our atmosphere with carbon dioxide, which traps heat and steadily drives up the planet’s temperature. Where does all this carbon come from? The fossil fuels we burn for energy — coal, natural gas, and oil — plus the loss of forests due to deforestation, especially in the tropics.
The scientific evidence is clear.

Within the scientific community, there is no debate: An overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree that global warming is happening and that human activity is the primary cause.

This broad consensus — and the extensive scientific evidence that supports it — is often downplayed or distorted by a small but vocal minority of special interests that have a vested interest in delaying action on climate change.
We have a choice.

We can act now to reduce our carbon emissions, slow the pace of global warming, and pass on a safer, healthier world to our children. Or we can choose to do nothing, continue pumping massive amounts of carbon into an already overloaded atmosphere, and suffer the increasingly costly consequences.

At UCS, we believe the choice is clear: We must take steps now to reduce our global warming emissions.
Together we can tackle global warming.

We have the practical solutions and technologies at hand to substantially reduce our emissions, create a clean energy economy, and establish the United States as a global leader in innovation.

To accomplish it, we must:

Demand action from our elected leaders
Take simple, practical steps to reduce our personal carbon emissions
Aggressively fight misinformation about global warming
Prepare our cities and communities for the growing impacts of climate change

Working together, we can do it — and you can help make it happen. Take action today!

bookmark_borderClimate Change in the United States

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says:

The Earth’s climate is changing. Temperatures are rising, snow and rainfall patterns are shifting, and more extreme climate events—like heavy rainstorms and record high temperatures—are already affecting society and ecosystems. Scientists are confident that many of the observed changes in the climate can be linked to the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, caused largely by people burning fossil fuels to generate electricity, heat and cool buildings, and power vehicles.

EPA is working with many other organizations to better understand the causes and effects of climate change. With help from these partners, EPA has compiled a set of 26 indicators tracking signs of climate change. Most of these indicators focus on the United States, but some include global trends to provide context or a basis for comparison. These indicators represent a selected set of key climate change measurements, and are not an exhaustive group of all climate change indicators. EPA’s indicators are based on peer-reviewed data from various government agencies, academic institutions, and other organizations. EPA selected these indicators based on the quality of the data and other criteria.

EPA published these indicators in a comprehensive report in December 2012. Indicators will be updated periodically on the Web as newer data become available.

Use this site to learn more about EPA’s indicators related to greenhouse gases, weather and climate, oceans, snow and ice, and society and ecosystems.

bookmark_borderFirst Global Pollution Tax

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The United Nations’ aviation agency (International Civil Aviation Organization) approved the initial steps in implementing a worldwide tax on greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes. If the proposal gets accepted, it would take effect in 2022.

The European Union had been seeking a more robust agreement:
“While we would have liked more countries to accept our regional scheme, progress was made overall,” the EU’s Climate Change Commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, said in a statement. “We will now factor this in when, together with the member states and the European Parliament, we decide on the way forward with the EU ETS (Emissions Trading Scheme).”

At least the United Nations initiative would invoke the first global effort to reduce greenhouse gases and hopefully pave the way for reductions in other industries.

More on taxing pollution.
More on global warming.

bookmark_borderTax Pollution

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One of the only taxes that makes sense is a pollution tax. A progressive income tax is perhaps the worst type of taxation. Why would you want to tax people for being productive… then, tax them higher the more productive they are?

These countries currently have taxes on carbon emissions: Australia, India, South Korea, Japan, Europe (28 countries), Finland, The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, UK, Ireland, Costa Rica, South Africa, New Zealand.

Why doesn’t the United States have a pollution tax?

More about emissions trading.

Help stop global warming.

bookmark_borderDisappearing Ice Sheets, Glaciers and Arctic Sea Ice

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The U.N.’s panel on global warming warns:

Over the last two decades, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing mass, glaciers have continued to shrink almost worldwide, and Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover have continued to decrease in extent (high confidence).

• The average rate of ice loss 8 from glaciers around the world, excluding glaciers on the periphery of the ice sheets 9, was very likely 226 [91 to 361] Gt yr−1 over the period 1971−2009, and very likely 275 [140 to 410] Gt yr −1 over the period 1993−2009 10. {4.3}
• The average rate of ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet has very likely substantially increased from 34 [–6 to 74] Gt yr –1 over the period 1992–2001 to 215 [157 to 274] Gt yr –1 over the period 2002–2011. {4.4}
• The average rate of ice loss from the Antarctic ice sheet has likely increased from 30 [–37 to 97] Gt yr –1 over the period 1992–2001 to 147 [72 to 221] Gt yr –1 over the period 2002–2011. There is very high confidence that these losses are mainly from the northern Antarctic Peninsula and the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica.
• The annual mean Arctic sea ice extent decreased over the period 1979–2012 with a rate that was very likely in the range 3.5 to 4.1% per decade (range of 0.45 to 0.51 million km 2 per decade), and very likely in the range 9.4 to 13.6% per decade (range of 0.73 to 1.07 million km 2 per decade) for the summer sea ice minimum (perennial sea ice). The average decrease in decadal mean extent of Arctic sea ice has been most rapid in summer (high confidence); the spatial extent has decreased in every season, and in every successive decade since 1979 (high confidence). There is medium confidence from reconstructions that over the past three decades, Arctic summer sea ice retreat was unprecedented and sea surface  temperatures were anomalously high in at least the last 1,450 years. {4.2, 5.5}
• It is very likely that the annual mean Antarctic sea ice extent increased at a rate in the range of 1.2 to 1.8% per decade (range of 0.13 to 0.20 million km 2 per decade) between 1979 and 2012. There is high confidence that there are strong regional differences in this annual rate, with extent increasing in some regions and decreasing in others. {4.2}
• There is very high confidence that the extent of Northern Hemisphere snow cover has decreased since the mid-20th century (see Figure SPM.3). Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent decreased 1.6 [0.8 to 2.4] % per decade for March and April, and 11.7 [8.8 to 14.6] % per decade for June, over the 1967–2012 period. During this period, snow cover extent in the Northern Hemisphere did not show a statistically significant increase in any month. {4.5}
• There is high confidence that permafrost temperatures have increased in most regions since the early 1980s. Observed warming was up to 3°C in parts of Northern Alaska (early 1980s to mid-2000s) and up to 2°C in parts of the Russian European North (1971–2010). In the latter region, a considerable reduction in permafrost thickness and areal extent has been observed over the period 1975–2005 (medium  confidence). {4.7}
• Multiple lines of evidence support very substantial Arctic warming since the mid-20th century. {Box 5.1, 10.3}

bookmark_borderWhy Doesn’t Global Warming Feel Warmer?

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). The report states that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”

Then, why doesn’t it feel that much hotter? Because most of the rise in temperature is in the water:

Ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010 (high confidence). It is virtually certain that the upper ocean (0?700 m) warmed from 1971 to 2010, and it likely warmed between the 1870s and 1971.

• On a global scale, the ocean warming is largest near the surface, and the upper 75 m warmed by 0.11 [0.09 to 0.13] °C per decade over the period 1971–2010. Since AR4, instrumental biases in upper-ocean temperature records have been identified and reduced, enhancing confidence in the assessment of change.
• It is likely that the ocean warmed between 700 and 2000 m from 1957 to 2009. Sufficient observations are available for the period 1992 to 2005 for a global assessment of temperature change below 2000 m. There were likely no significant observed temperature trends between 2000 and 3000 m for this period. It is likely that the ocean warmed from 3000 m to the bottom for this period, with the largest warming observed in the Southern Ocean.
• More than 60% of the net energy increase in the climate system is stored in the upper ocean (0–700 m) during the relatively well-sampled 40-year period from 1971 to 2010, and about 30% is stored in the ocean below 700 m. The increase in upper ocean heat content during this time period estimated from a linear trend is likely.
• It is about as likely as not that ocean heat content from 0–700 m increased more slowly during 2003–2010 than during 1993–2002. Ocean heat uptake from 700–2000m, where interannual variability is smaller, likely continued unabated from 1993 to 2009.
• It is very likely that regions of high salinity where evaporation dominates have become more saline, while regions of low salinity where precipitation dominates have become fresher since the 1950s. These regional trends in ocean salinity provide indirect evidence that evaporationand precipitation over the oceans have changed (medium confidence).
• There is no observational evidence of a trend in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), based on the decade-long record of the complete AMOC and longer records of individual AMOC components.

bookmark_borderU.N.: Humans Induce Climate Change

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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that “we cannot accept a rising tide that floats only some boats and leaves many to drown.”

Ban Ki-moon has been taking a strong stance on global warming. His latest efforts include getting world leaders to admit humans are impacting climate change. Most people would think this is a given. No. In fact, quite a few government and business leaders refuse to admit to what science shows.

“Nobody can benefit from catastrophic climate change or rampant unemployment and the social unrest that comes with it,” Mr. Ban said.

UK newspaper The Independent says. “The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will say next week that certainty has increased from “very likely” to “extremely likely” that human activity has caused more than half of the observed temperature rise from 1951 to 2010, in a large part due to fossil fuels and deforestation.”

bookmark_borderBelief in Anthropogenic Climate Change

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From the American Meteorological Society

A series of polls provides new tests for how weather influences public beliefs about climate change. Statewide data from 5000 random-sample telephone interviews conducted on 99 days over 2.5 yr (2010–12) are merged with temperature and precipitation indicators derived from U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) station records. The surveys carry a question designed around scientific consensus statements that climate change is happening now, caused mainly by human activities. Alternatively, respondents can state that climate change is not happening, or that it is happening but mainly for natural reasons. Belief that humans are changing the climate is predicted by temperature anomalies on the interview day and the previous day, controlling for season, survey, and individual characteristics. Temperature effects concentrate among one subgroup, however: individuals who identify themselves as independent, rather than aligned with a political party. Interviewed on unseasonably warm days, independents tend to agree with the scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic climate change. On unseasonably cool days, they tend not to agree. Although temperature effects are sharpest for just a 2-day window, positive effects are seen for longer windows as well. As future climate change shifts the distribution of anomalies and extremes, this will first affect beliefs among unaligned voters.

bookmark_borderYosemite Wildfire

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One of the largest wildfires to ever hit California caused a smoke plume effecting air quality over 100 miles away. The fire has already destroyed over 110 structures and continues to burn out-of-control.

““It was like a bomb went off, exploded,” a firefighter said. “When the inversion lifted, the fog coming from the smoke, when it lifted, this fire exploded and it’s been running away ever since.”

So far, more than 288-square-miles have burned.

The park has issued this statement:
Most of Yosemite National Park is not affected by the fire and is relatively smoke-free. The northern part of the park, including some areas along the Tioga Road, has some smoke. Conditions may change if winds shift. However:

* The Big Oak Flat Road (the continuation of Highway 120 inside Yosemite) and Highway 120 west of Yosemite are closed between J132 near Buck Meadows (outside the park) to Crane Flat (inside the park). Beginning at noon on Wednesday, August 28, the only access to Yosemite Valley is via Highway 140 from Merced or Highway 41 from Fresno.
* Beginning at noon on Wednesday, August 28, the Tioga Road (Highway 120 through the park) is closed from Crane Flat to Yosemite Creek. The only access to the Tuolumne Meadows area is via Highway 120 from near Lee Vining.
* Hetch Hetchy Road and Evergreen Road are closed.
* White Wolf is closed, including the lodge, campground, road, and trails originating from White Wolf.
* Crane Flat, Hodgdon Meadow, Tamarack Flat, Yosemite Creek, and White Wolf Campgrounds and Hetch Hetchy Backpackers’ Campground are closed.
* Merced and Tuolumne Groves of Giant Sequoias are closed so firefighters can work on preventive fire suppression efforts. The groves are not currently in imminent danger.
* Wilderness trail closures: The area west of the May Lake Road and May Lake Trail continuing to the junction with the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) at Glen Aulin and then north along the PCT to Bond Pass is closed. The park’s boundary serves as the closure’s northern and western edge extending south to the junction of the Big Oak Flat Road and Tioga Road at Crane Flat. The closure’s boundary continues east from Crane Flat paralleling the Tioga Road a half mile to its south to the Tamarack Flat Campground Road. The closure follows the Tamarack Flat Campground Road to the campground then continues on the Tamarack Creek trail to the junction with the North Rim Trail. Then east along the North Rim trail to the Yosemite Creek trail north to the Tioga Road. The closure then follows the Tioga Road east to the May Lake Road. The trails serving as the eastern and southern boundary of the closed area remain open. May Lake High Sierra Camp, Glen Aulin High Sierra Camp, and Porcupine Flat Campground are open.