Climate Change: Evidence and Causes: Set of 5 Booklets (2014); download is 36 pages. Actually, the docs were produced by both the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society.
One can either purchase a hard copy or download for free all documents issued by the National Academy of Sciences.
For a change, one hazard is not attributed to climate change.
See: New Study: California’s Epic Drought Probably Wasn’t Caused by Climate Change; But rising temperatures might be making it worse.
New report (54 pp) titled Believers, Sympathizers, & Skeptics: Why Americans are conflicted about climate change, environmental. policy, and science. Findings from the PRRI.AAR Religious Values and Climate Change Survey.
As noted recently in Emergency Management magazine’s blog, the federal government has created a new Climate Resilience Toolkit. The direct URL is here.
Effects of climate change ‘irreversible,’ U.N. panel warns in report. Some excerpts:
The Earth is locked on an “irreversible” course of climatic disruption from the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and the impacts will only worsen unless nations agree to dramatic cuts in pollution, an international panel of climate scientists warned Sunday.
The planet faces a future of extreme weather, rising sea levels and melting polar ice from soaring levels of carbon dioxide and other gases, the U.N. panel said. Only an unprecedented global effort to slash emissions within a relatively short time period will prevent temperatures from crossing a threshold that scientists say could trigger far more dangerous disruptions, the panel warned.
The full text of this 5th Assessment Report (175 pp) can be downloaded from this link. ___________________________________
Additional News Coverage:
From the Huffington Post, an article that has an interesting method of using numbers and text to address climate change; see: 21 Numbers That Explain Why We Need To Address Climate Change Right Now.
From the National Geographic, Human-Caused Climate Change Worsened Heat Waves in 2013, Study Says. The climate connection to storms and droughts is less clear.
A new report attributes heat waves around the world in 2013 to human-caused climate change, but finds the link between climate change and other extreme weather events—including the California drought—to be much less certain.
The peer-reviewed report [108 pp]“Explaining Extreme Events of 2013 From a Climate Perspective” examined the causes of 16 extreme events that occurred on four continents in 2013. The special report, published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, includes 22 separate analyses prepared by groups of scientists from the U.S. and U.K.
Thomas R. Karl, the director of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, said in a press briefing that “being able to physically understand extreme events is absolutely critical for our ability to predict future extreme weather and understand our role in changing the climate.”
Karl noted that “extreme events are very complex and are often caused by multiple factors.” Natural variability often plays a role, he said.
This is the third annual report on the connections between individual extreme weather events and climate change, led by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Another take on the same report is this article from the Smithsonian.
From the HuffPost, this article is worth reading: Toledo’s Troubles: Vivid Example of Why We Need to Act on Climate and Clean Water.
I had been wondering why people were not told to boil the water – that would have made the poison worse!
See also the article in the NYTimes on Troubled Lake Eire.
From reader James Fossett:
Your readers may be interested in—or dismayed by– this story about Miami, which is possibly the most at-risk city in the country to the effects of sea level rise, yet continues to build and grow as if nothing were going on. Large areas already flood during seasonal high tides, and the city would be toast if hit by even a moderate sized hurricane. Local and state politicians oppose any effort to do anything because it would wreck the economy and won’t even talk in public about the city’s problem. It’s not a question of if, but when.
From the Guardian: Miami, the great world city, is drowning while the powers that be look away
Low-lying south Florida, at the front line of climate change in the US, will be swallowed as sea levels rise. Astonishingly, the population is growing, house prices are rising and building goes on. The problem is the city is run by climate change deniers. * * *
What makes Miami exceptionally vulnerable to climate change is its unique geology. The city – and its satellite towns and resorts – is built on a dome of porous limestone which is soaking up the rising seawater, slowly filling up the city’s foundations and then bubbling up through drains and pipes. Sewage is being forced upwards and fresh water polluted. Miami’s low topography only adds to these problems. There is little land out here that rises more than six feet above sea level. Many condos and apartment blocks open straight on the edge of the sea. Of the total of 4.2 million US citizens who live at an elevation of four feet or less, 2.4 million of them live in south Florida.
Re the symposium held at MIT this past week. Go to: http://seagrant.mit.edu/conferences/CCS2014/
Recovery Diva 