Climate Change Worse Than We Predicted, Says New Report

[Rhykker]

Climate Change Worse Than We Predicted, Says New Report

A new government report has summarized the present and future impacts of climate change on the U.S. and confirmed that some changes are happening faster than predicted.

The U.S. government has released its 2014 National Climate Assessment, a report produced by a team of more than 300 experts and reviewed by a panel of the National Academy of Sciences. The major conclusion? Human-induced climate change continues to strengthen, and its impacts are increasing across the country.

This is the same conclusion we've been hearing for years from various sources, but the report does highlight one finding it calls a surprise: that certain changes are happening faster than previously projected, such as sea level rise and the melting of Arctic sea ice.

The full report is a staggering 840 pages and can be downloaded from the official website, which offers a convenient overview. Some notable findings include the average temperature in the U.S. increasing by 1.3°F to 1.9°F since record keeping began in 1895, an increase in heavy downpours, heat waves, floods, and droughts, and the rise of global sea levels by eight inches since reliable record keeping began in 1880. Projections estimate sea levels will rise by another one to four feet by 2100, and the Arctic Ocean is expected to become ice free during the summer months before mid-century.

It's not all bad news, though. Between 2008 and 2012, there was a decline in the total amount of carbon dioxide emitted annually from energy use in the U .S. However, global emissions in 2011 were around 34 billion tons and have been rising by about 0.9 billion tons per year for the past decade. To mitigate the effects of climate change, the report assesses that global carbon emissions would have to peak at around 44 billion tons per year within the next 25 years; at present rates, we're expected to surpass that figure within a decade.

Personally, what I find most remarkable about all this is that the government managed to put together a website that isn't an eyesore.

Source: National Climate Assessment [http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/]


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[deth2munkies]

It's never worse than expected. The nuts in the '90s were saying by 2014 we'd all be underwater. Then Al Gore had us underwater by 2050, this report pushes it to 2100. It's the same doomsday shit every time. We'll probably kill ourselves off some other way before our affecting the climate gets us. Even then, once we're gone, everything goes back to normal and the Earth gives no fucks.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I doubt the US conservatives would get a hint even if Florida sinks to the bottom of the ocean. They don't trust them scientist types. 'Murica and Jeezus!

 

[The Great JT]

The important thing is I eventually have beachfront property.

 

[MCerberus]

It's never worse than expected. The nuts in the '90s were saying by 2014 we'd all be underwater. Then Al Gore had us underwater by 2050, this report pushes it to 2100. It's the same doomsday shit every time. We'll probably kill ourselves off some other way before our affecting the climate gets us. Even then, once we're gone, everything goes back to normal and the Earth gives no fucks.

That's because "New York is underwater" is a more vivid image than "slightly longer droughts and more intense storms lead to a general trend of lower agriculture yields generally messing up the global economy. Also there will generally be more of those days in summer everyone hates but not every year because variance."


Although if they wanted to avoid hyperbole, the increased water consumption may ACTUALLY cause several western cities to crumble into dust when the aquifers dry up.

 

[Nowhere Man]

Personally, what I find most remarkable about all this is that the government managed to put together a website that isn't an eyesore.

See? Always look on the bright side of things.

 

[synobal]

It's never worse than expected. The nuts in the '90s were saying by 2014 we'd all be underwater. Then Al Gore had us underwater by 2050, this report pushes it to 2100. It's the same doomsday shit every time. We'll probably kill ourselves off some other way before our affecting the climate gets us. Even then, once we're gone, everything goes back to normal and the Earth gives no fucks.

That is cute but we could easily perminately destablize the biosphere to the point where nothing bigger than bacterium could live here for millions of years or longer. You want to see the power of a run away green house effect? Just look at Venus.

 

[Vivi22]

It's never worse than expected. The nuts in the '90s were saying by 2014 we'd all be underwater. Then Al Gore had us underwater by 2050, this report pushes it to 2100. It's the same doomsday shit every time. We'll probably kill ourselves off some other way before our affecting the climate gets us. Even then, once we're gone, everything goes back to normal and the Earth gives no fucks.

That is cute but we could easily perminately destablize the biosphere to the point where nothing bigger than bacterium could live here for millions of years or longer. You want to see the power of a run away green house effect? Just look at Venus.

Yeah basically this. Most worrying is the impact we're having on the oceans as biological diversity is dropping, species are dying off at an alarming rate, and the ocean is also becoming much less hospitable to life.

If that were to be pushed to the point that almost all life in the oceans die we're basically fucked since 80% of the oxygen in the atmosphere is there because the ocean is a thing that exists and supports life.

Can we all just finally look at France, agree nuclear power isn't so bad, and fucking save ourselves already? Because we're getting pretty close to the point of no return here, and I'd really prefer that we don't have to watch while cities fall apart and millions of people starve to get the nay sayers to finally admit there's a problem.

 

[wickedmonkey]

Back when I was in school it was acid rain that was going to kill us all and melt our babies and now we have global warming...

What no one mentions is that we're still coming out of an Ice Age, the planet is warming up on its own regardless of what we do, like cutting CO2 emissions - a volcano or two and we're back to square one. Nature will do its own thing and will probably kill us off at some point and there will be nothing we can do about it.

Humans have been on this planet for not even the blink of an eye for Earth, and it will still be a big blue marble spinning in space *long* after we kill ourselves off or the planet does it first...

I'm not saying "Fuck it! Burn all our coal and trees!", I'm actually hoping we get Hydrogen production nailed down, adopt nuclear energy properly (that means using modern reactors and not Soviet era sheds!)and put more effort into exploring options for dealing with spent nuclear fuel instead of pratting about with bloody windmills...

 

[JET1971]

It's never worse than expected. The nuts in the '90s were saying by 2014 we'd all be underwater. Then Al Gore had us underwater by 2050, this report pushes it to 2100. It's the same doomsday shit every time. We'll probably kill ourselves off some other way before our affecting the climate gets us. Even then, once we're gone, everything goes back to normal and the Earth gives no fucks.

That's because "New York is underwater" is a more vivid image than "slightly longer droughts and more intense storms lead to a general trend of lower agriculture yields generally messing up the global economy. Also there will generally be more of those days in summer everyone hates but not every year because variance."


Although if they wanted to avoid hyperbole, the increased water consumption may ACTUALLY cause several western cities to crumble into dust when the aquifers dry up.

No they will then be forced to do what they should have 30 years ago and start building desalination plants and get water from the ocean rather than roll the dice every year and hope for a good snowpack in the mountains to fill up the lakes. The water can then be pumped back to the lakes on draught years to ensure farmers have enough water for crops and can also be pumped to good farmland that's not close enough to a water source to make a viable farm. Cities have plenty of water and farmers wont need to worry about droughts but it costs money that everyone's afraid to spend even though it would be a huge benefit in creating jobs, helping the environment by not draining rivers every year, and allow for more food production that's not dependent on rainfall.

 

[MCerberus]

It's never worse than expected. The nuts in the '90s were saying by 2014 we'd all be underwater. Then Al Gore had us underwater by 2050, this report pushes it to 2100. It's the same doomsday shit every time. We'll probably kill ourselves off some other way before our affecting the climate gets us. Even then, once we're gone, everything goes back to normal and the Earth gives no fucks.

That's because "New York is underwater" is a more vivid image than "slightly longer droughts and more intense storms lead to a general trend of lower agriculture yields generally messing up the global economy. Also there will generally be more of those days in summer everyone hates but not every year because variance."


Although if they wanted to avoid hyperbole, the increased water consumption may ACTUALLY cause several western cities to crumble into dust when the aquifers dry up.

No they will then be forced to do what they should have 30 years ago and start building desalination plants and get water from the ocean rather than roll the dice every year and hope for a good snowpack in the mountains to fill up the lakes. The water can then be pumped back to the lakes on draught years to ensure farmers have enough water for crops and can also be pumped to good farmland that's not close enough to a water source to make a viable farm. Cities have plenty of water and farmers wont need to worry about droughts but it costs money that everyone's afraid to spend even though it would be a huge benefit in creating jobs, helping the environment by not draining rivers every year, and allow for more food production that's not dependent on rainfall.

The US doesn't do anything that they should have done earlier until AFTER a disaster. We're going to have somewhere run out of water before any change in water policy.

 

[Baresark]

Eh, quite frankly the matter is much more complicated than it's made out to be in those reports. The truth is, there projections are completely bullshit. Not because they are definitely wrong, but they are running projections on an extremely complex system that can't reliably be understood except in hindsight. Those projections are fantasies based on an extension of the hindsight bias.

Once again, not saying it's wrong, but all of those projections should be taken with a grain of salt.

Also, saw people talking about water desalination: On that matter, large farms already rely not on irrigation to supply water to their crops, but using groundwater to supply the needed water. Farming will eventually fail if this is not fixed because groundwater has a substantially higher salt content than rain water or runoff. It is barely detectable at all, but over years and years of watering crops this way, the earth is very slowly being salted, making it harder for crops to grow. That is not including the issue resulting from the earth being deprived of all the nutrients, meaning the need for chemical fertilizers is ever growing.

In regards to planting, I think that large vertical hydroponic farms will ultimately prove more effective for growing a great many crops, at least ones that can be grown in such a manner.

Edit: Forgot, I doubt I need to point out how useless an "average temperature increase" is. It should never exist without reference to both mean and median temperature numbers. They tend to be more useful.

I know this is also not science, but we have been having unseasonably cool temperatures in New Jersey for a few years now. But of course... as I understand it... human induced climate change (ie. global warming) is also responsible for cool temperatures... which doesn't actually make any sense. But I'm not a climatologist... so I definitely don't know everything about that.

 

[TheSYLOH]

No they will then be forced to do what they should have 30 years ago and start building desalination plants and get water from the ocean rather than roll the dice every year and hope for a good snowpack in the mountains to fill up the lakes. The water can then be pumped back to the lakes on draught years to ensure farmers have enough water for crops and can also be pumped to good farmland that's not close enough to a water source to make a viable farm. Cities have plenty of water and farmers wont need to worry about droughts but it costs money that everyone's afraid to spend even though it would be a huge benefit in creating jobs, helping the environment by not draining rivers every year, and allow for more food production that's not dependent on rainfall.

Desalination Plants need energy to run, energy that is probably going to come from burning fossil fuels. It's like putting out a burning house by flooding the town.
Plus agriculture uses more than 4 times the amount of water as a residential does, and it doesn't take that much more energy input to produce potable water instead of non-potable.

 

[C117]

Once again, a reason for me to recycle as much stuff as possible and not buy a car...

 

[kanetsb]

The cool thing about this Global Warming, is that my country's farming output is expected to increase by a 100% due to the increase in median yearly temperatures. However... the countries south to mine will see a large decline...

Cha-ching!

Better yet, we're not responsible for the warming as our carbon production is not that high.

Thanks America and China - keep the fossil flame burning strong!

 

[AnarchistFish]

predictions are hard to make. even the most sophisticated models can't take into account the entirety of all the minute factors (chaos theory etc), and that's even before you estimate how human activity might change

which is why we get graphs that look like this

The cool thing about this Global Warming, is that my country's farming output is expected to increase by a 100% due to the increase in median yearly temperatures. However... the countries south to mine will see a large decline...

Cha-ching!

Better yet, we're not responsible for the warming as our carbon production is not that high.

Thanks America and China - keep the fossil flame burning strong!

where you from?

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Pretty much everything I've heard related to climate change has been that things will be/have gotten worse than predicted. To the point where maybe instead of predicting and trusting that, we should add another 20% or something, just so we know what we're dealing with.

But really we should be doing something. Don't look at me though, my Prime Minister doesn't believe in Climate Change, you guys have to do the rational thought on this one.

 

[FalloutJack]

So far, this has yet to render any significant change to Pittsburgh weather, as Pittsburgh weather is ALWAYS nuts. However, it's strangely a rather nice day today, so I'm actually going to ramp the snark down a bit and say the LACK of clouds has a silver lining every now and then.