Global warming is here, caused by human activity: Massive federal government report

The EPA under Pruitt is in the process of dismantling the main environmental regulations written under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and the EPA, on Pruitt’s instructions, has removed references to “climate change” and “global warming” from the agency’s website.

The Washington Post reports that the EPA also has altered parts of its website containing detailed climate data and scientific information. In April the agency took down pages that had existed for years and contained a wealth of information on the scientific causes of global warming, its consequences and ways for communities to mitigate or adapt. The agency said that it was making changes to better reflect the new administration’s priorities and that any pages taken down would be archived.

Other departments have also removed climate-change information and documents from their websites: The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, for example, no longer provides access to documents assessing the danger that future warming poses to deserts in the Southwest.

Rick Perry, the secretary of energy, has raised the possibility of offering government subsidies to coal production, as coal is losing the battle in the market place to cleaner sources of energy such as natural gas and renewables.

Political appointees in different departments have altered the wording of their departments’ news releases if those releases made references to climate change, and blocked civil servants from speaking about their conclusions in public forums.

The report’s lead author, David Fahey of NOAA, noted that there are no policy recommendations in the report, only scientific information. He added that there was also no interference from policymakers. 

Virginia Burkett, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey and acting chair of the subcommittee on Global Change Research, said that the White House Office of Science and Technology signed off on the report, said.

Among the report’s findings:

· Global average sea level has risen by about 7–8 inches since 1900, with almost half (about 3 inches) of that rise occurring since 1993.

· Global average sea levels are expected to continue to rise — by at least several inches in the next 15 years and by 1–4 feet by 2100. A rise of as much as 8 feet by 2100 cannot be ruled out. 

· Heavy rainfall is increasing in intensity and frequency across the United States and globally and is expected to continue to increase.

· The incidence of daily tidal flooding is accelerating in more than 25 Atlantic and Gulf Coast cities.

· Heatwaves have become more frequent in the United States since the 1960s, while extreme cold temperatures and cold waves are less frequent.

· The incidence of large forest fires in the western United States and Alaska has increased since the early 1980s and is projected to further increase.

·  Annual trends toward earlier spring melt and reduced snowpack are already affecting water resources in the western United States.

The report noted that the concentration of global atmospheric carbon dioxide has now passed 400 parts per million. The last time such concentrations were reached was about three million years ago, when both global average temperature and sea level were significantly higher than today. 

The report, for the first time, the also included a list of what it calls climate-related “surprises,” or unanticipated changes, in which tipping points in the Earth’s systems are crossed or climate-related extreme events happen at the same time, creating “compound extreme events,” multiplying the potential damage and destruction. These changes include large-scale shifts in major worldwide climate patterns that would wreak havoc on the global climate system.

The report concludes that “climate models are more likely to underestimate than to overestimate the amount of long-term future change.”

“The Climate Science Special Report is the most up-to-date comprehensive report on climate science available right now anywhere on the planet,” Robert E. Kopp, a climate and sea-level rise expert at Rutgers who helped write the report, told USA Today. “It confirms that climate change is real, occurring today, and principally caused by human emissions.”

Rachel Licker, senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said:

The draft NCA highlights the significant impacts climate change is already having around the country. Those impacts, including on our health and economy, will likely worsen unless we take strong steps to limit global warming emissions, and adequately prepare and protect communities.

As with the earlier installments of the NCA, the latest report is making its way through rigorous scientific review that ensures a strong, accurate product and complete transparency. Before the report can be finalized in 2018, it will be reviewed by hundreds of independent scientists spanning disciplines and fields of expertise, including those from the National Academy of Sciences. It will also incorporate public comments received, which will likely total into the thousands.

The assessment is like a doctor’s report that evaluates a patient’s vital signs and uses that information to diagnose a medical condition. In this case the medical condition is climate change and the symptoms are rising temperatures, higher sea levels and more extreme weather events. Experience tells us, and the Climate Science Special Report confirms, the United States is experiencing recurring heat waves, heavy rainfalls, more intense wildfires, and greater flooding from rising seas.

The Climate Science Special Report also reaffirms that humanity’s emissions of heat-trapping gasses are the primary driver of the recent rise in global temperatures. It finds that with significant reductions in emissions, global temperature rise could be limited to less than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels, consistent with the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement.

Unlike a physician, the climate assessment stops short of offering up a specific prescription or treatment plan. Instead, the American public must hold legislators and policy-makers accountable for taking action commensurate with the problem.

The report could have considerable legal and policy significance, providing new and stronger support for the EPA’s greenhouse-gas “endangerment finding” under the Clean Air Act, which lays the foundation for regulations on emissions.

“This is a federal government report whose contents completely undercut their policies, completely undercut the statements made by senior members of the administration,” Phil Duffy, director of the Woods Hole Research Center, told the Washington Post.

— Read more in Climate Science Special Report, Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume 1 (U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2017)