US Gov't Climate Final Draft Report Determines Increasing Temperatures "Extremely Likely" Caused by Human Activity
Friends - A final draft by the best and brightest of our remaining US Govt Climate Scientists had determined that the global warming is happening and "extremely likely" to be caused by human activity.
The report, U.S. Global Change Research Program: Climate Science Special Report was authored by the National Science Foundation, NOAA Earth System Research Lab,and NASA HQ and is found at this link. The final draft report was issued in Jan, and only recently published by the NYT here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/07/climate/document-Draft-of-the-Climate-Science-Special-Report.html
It appears to me this flew under the radar of Pruitt's EPA, which unlike many other US government agencies, has actual been getting things done, unfortunately, most of them the wrong things - like deleting valuable pollution data from the EPA website and undermining protections of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.
I will be very pleasantly surprised if this reports, which is to be issued by Aug 18th, survives in its current form as it it is to be approved by 13 agencies including the EPA. Other findings are that last year was the hottest on record, recent decades have been hottest in 1500 years, that is it possible to attribute some of the extreme weather we have experienced to climate change. The study looked at every corner of the USA and determined all of it was impacted by climate change. Another 5-7.5 deg F is predicted by late century, depending on levels of future emissions.
Frighteningly, the report notes temperature at the poles are rising twice as fast as global averages. In case you missed it, a chunk of ice big enough to cover the US in a 4.5" thick layer broke off Antarctica last month. While that ice was floating, and will minimally impact sea level if it melts, the concern is that additional ice on Antarctica will now flow to the sea. I haven't studied it, but have been wondering what will happen to currents if the tremendous volume melts, injecting huge volumes of fresh water in sea water in concentrated areas.
I believe it is really important to get the best data, share it widely, and debate the degree of the issues, and best methods to solve it. We can solve almost anything if have the intention to. Please reach out to EPA leadership and encourage them to do the right thing, issue report per the scientific consensus that has already been achieved, instead of twisting it to a political agenda.
Thx Shug
Data Specialists at Turing.com
2yDaniel, thanks for sharing!
Associate Solutions Consultant at Adobe || PGDM - IMI, New Delhi
2yDaniel, thanks for sharing!
Nanomaterials, Physics of Quantum Devices, Nanosensors, and Photovoltaics. Supports Conservation and Solar and Wind Technologies for Hydrogen harvesting, CO2 conversion, and Desalination.
5yAll human activities are damaging things in our dear home earth. Let me start with a visible one, dust generated while building and constructing roads,... kills trees. I have seen that in semi-arid regions. In the US and Europe, they adopted good ways to prevent that, but elsewhere they don’t. Dust produced by human contributes in the desertification. That also contributes to climate change. At microscopic scale aerosols produced by humans, soot nanoparticles,… stagnate in the stratosphere. Moreover, the ozone layer is thinned by the imbalance of CO2 at the layer boundary. With the UV action (UV is strong up there) CO2 and ozone are decomposed to produce CO. All these are well known, well characterized and measured many times and have historical data that show the climate accelerated changes. Tons of papers have been published. So I don’t understand those people who deny the global warming. Don’t they read and look at the data for themselves? When it comes to keeping the energy balance, there is no alternative but solar and wind. Wind is just a backup, a very good one. Slowing the wind to produce energy does not globally cause energy imbalance, as that energy is released back to the environment. Nuclear injects additional energy in the environment, that’s not good! However, solar technologies are still not there yet, but they are coming and will become self-sustaining. Silicon cells can be improved a lot, in particular in the IR, the part of the solar spectrum for which silicon is transparent (25% energy is lost). Also, the UV Solar spectrum range has a lot to offer as well. So there is a big hope, but research needs more money. Here, I blame solar industry for not funding university R&D PV projects. I personally had few small contracts from some nice companies, but I got most of my research money from the federal. I believe we can make it. I strongly believe in PV (combined with wind when possible). Solar is now successful and Si PV will even bring a lot more. But we need to accelerate the R&D part, time is running out. There is no time to waste in listening to the deniers, they are only doing politics for self-promotion; they sure know that they can’t beat experimentally verified science. Thank you Prof. Karoui
Connecting philanthropists to environmental and climate solutions.
7yDan, thanks for speaking out on this.
Helping build the future of energy so it is clean, simple and accessible
7yAgree 100 per cent.