By Roy L Hales

The time for talking about rising global temperatures as a future threat is over. According to the  most recent National Climate Assessment, Climate Change is here and getting worse.

“On the whole, summers are longer and hotter with longer periods of extended heat. Wildfires start earlier in the Spring and continue later into the fall. Rain comes down in heavier downpours. People are experiencing changes in the length and severity of seasonal allergies and climate disruptions to water resources and agriculture have been increasing,” said Dr. John Holdren, President Obama’s Science Advisor. (Watch the video below)

The original Whitehouse and EPA articles supporting this video have disappeared, bit you can still find supporting data at https://www.globalchange.gov/climate-change and https://climate.nasa.gov/.

Some will dispute their findings, pointing out that Climate Change is a theory. It also seems to be the most rational explanation for the extreme weather events we are witnessing. That said, there is an unknown factor in every future prediction. Nobody knows exactly what will happen. The third National Climate Assessment is an accumulation of present data and best guesses as to what it means for the future.

According to data from the The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, all ten of the planet’s warmest years on record occurred after 1998. This statistic is lower, when the search is restricted to the US. Only 7 of the 10 warmest years are within tthis time frame.

The average temperature in the Northwest has risen 1.5°F, over the last century and is expected to increase 3-10°F by the end of the century.

This may result in a 40% reduction of the snow falling in the Cascade mountains, which in turn reduces the amount of water available for hydroelectricity. There will also be more wildfires and less water available for irrigation.

A similar scenario is expected in California, where the EPA adds:

“The Southwest produces more than half of the nation’s high-value specialty crops, including certain vegetables, fruits, and nuts. The severity of future impacts will depend upon the complex interaction of pests, water supply, reduced chilling periods, and more rapid changes in the seasonal timing of crop development due to projected warming and extreme events. Climate changes will increase stress on the region’s rich diversity of plant and animal species. Widespread tree death and fires, which already have caused billions of dollars in economic losses, are projected to increase…”

America’s droughts are expected to continue. Look at Southern California and the more inland regions of Washington and Oregon on the map above.

The Irony being that as temperatures rise, spring run-offs will occur earlier and this could result in flooding in areas like the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta system, which is below sea level.

Over the course of the last century, the sea level has already risen around 7 inches along the coast of California. This has resulted in significant damages to Highway 101 near San Francisco. Another 16-inch rise is anticipated over the next five decades. Some scenarios call for an increase of up to three feet. A quarter of a million people live in areas that would be at risk should there be an extreme flood.

More than 140,000 acres of Washington and Oregon could experience frequent inundations because of the rise in sea levels.   Though the rise may be as little as 13 inches, when combined with high tides and spring runoff – this could produce significant flooding in low lying cities like Seattle.

Is all of this inevitable?

As Charles Dickens once wrote, “Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,’ said Scrooge. ‘But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change….”

Scrooge did change, in “A Christmas Carol,” but the US has yet to. The nation’s CO2 emissions were up 7.45% in 2013, over the same period in 2012, and now are up by 11.93% for the first two months of 2014. The Sun Day Campaign has identified the principal culprits as coal (emissions up 11.93% in 2014) and natural gas (up 9.97% in 2014).

These figures do not include methane which is both the principal component of natural gas and, according to EPA (p 13 of attached), “more than 20 times as effective as CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere.”

The  EPA has previously reported that, during 2013, US methane emissions dropped 10% drop below 2005 levels. They suggested (p 14) this was due to reductions in the number of beef cattle, which are the #1 source of this gas. However, as you can see from the graph on the left,  natural gas production is  +110 million kilowatt hours less than in 2012.  This would also be a contributing factor.