The Week in Climate Change
Dec. 11 — Dec. 17, 2017
Pick of the Week: Debbie Urbanski’s An Incomplete Timeline of What We Tried at Motherboard. As Eric Holhaus tweeted about it, “God damn.”
Science/Effects
[This event] was really, really rare. Locally, the return period was one in 9,000 years. Any city in the world would have flooded with that amount of rain. Regionally, for an event like this occur anywhere on the Gulf Coast, it was a one in a 100 year event, even that is quite extreme.
The new projections warn of runaway risks during the second half of the century, with those risks substantially higher if current levels of greenhouse gas emissions continue.
Under the high-pollution RCP8.5 scenario, the study’s median projection for the period 2000 to 2100 is for 146 cm (4’9”) of global average sea-level rise. According to the research, local rise would vary from region to region under the same scenario, and would exceed the global average for all U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coast locations, ranging up to 225 cm (7’5”) or more in Louisiana.
The record mean surface temperature for the world in 2016 was found to be “only possible due to substantial centennial-scale anthropogenic warming.”
Researchers measured the growth of seedlings in 1,500 wildfire-scorched areas in Colorado, Wyoming, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Across the board, they found “significant decreases” in tree regeneration, a benchmark for forest resilience. In one-third of the sites, researchers found zero seedlings.
As with most pollution, the poorest and frailest are the most vulnerable to smoke waves. A U.S. EPA study of emergency room visits linked to a North Carolina wildfire that burned in 2008 showed health risks from PM2.5increased in the counties with the poorest residents and with the greatest levels of income inequality.
In California, where a fast-growing population is fueling a housing crisis, officials and non-profits have been working to protect the homeless population, such as by providing masks. Non-profit workers have also been providing masks to farm workers. Homeless people and farm workers can be especially vulnerable because they often have limited access to health care and have trouble sheltering inside when the smoke outside is heavy.
Another report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that the state of continued ice melt, loss of snow cover and warm temperatures will be the “new normal” in the Arctic. The signs of climate change in the region have been pronounced for years as air temperatures have risen there at twice the rate as they have globally.
The effects of a melting Arctic — and the strong likelihood that it will not return to a normal state anytime soon — has significant implications far beyond its boundaries. Arctic sea ice plays an important role moderating global temperatures as it reflects sunlight back into space. And scientists say that the swift warming in the Arctic is a concerning sign of what’s to come globally.
Politics
This past week, the Government Accountability Office released a report on the climate preparedness of the Pentagon, concluding that while it frequently voices concern about how rising sea levels and atmospheric temperatures could affect military activity abroad, it is not doing enough to turn those words into action at foreign facilities.
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The watchdog also found the military’s review was “incomplete and not comprehensive” because dozens of overseas sites were exempt from completing the vulnerability assessment — and because the Pentagon doesn’t consistently track the estimated cost of climate impact.
The 25-page list of API’s suggested regulatory changes places particular emphasis on eight key demands that peel away standards primarily imposed under Barack Obama’s administration. The EPA’s administrator, Scott Pruitt, previously a harsh critic of the agency who has pledged to rein in its “out of control, anti-energy agenda”, has overseen the delay or repeal moves in line with six of API’s eight highest priorities.
Energy
“It is hard to overstate the significance of this historic announcement by the World Bank.”
