Draft U.S And World Climate Assessment States The Obvious: Climate Change Is Screwing With Us Already

Several big reports highlight the urgency for participants
in the UN climate conference in Egypt. I hit a few of the
highlights in this post. 

 A couple of big preliminary reports are telling us a lot of what we already know about the current effects of climate change, but they are still very much worth noting:  

The basic message from these reports: Climate change sucks. And it keeps sucking more and more. 

The first report is the United State's Fifth National Climate Assessment. The assessment on how climate change is affecting the U.S. and what is being done about it, must be compiled once every four years, per Congressional mandate. 

According to the draft report:

"Americans are feeling the effects of climate change in their everyday lives, as intensifying extreme events strain public services and outdated infrastructure.....As climate risks continue to increase in scale and frequency, multiple climate hazards and cascading climate impacts are disrupting essential societal systems in every part of the country."

The document says the U.S. has warmed about 68 percent faster than the planet as a whole, or 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the continental U.S. 

After a public comment period, updates and editing, the final report should be released next year. I'm not sure whether it will lead to any policy changes. But at least the Biden administration seems to be taking this at least fairly seriously. 

Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organization released a provisional State Of the Climate Report for 2022  

This is an annual report that summarizes the global state of climate change for the most recent year. Of course, 2022 isn't over yet, but a preliminary world report for the year was released early to emphasize to the UN annual global COP27 climate conference . That conference in Egypt is schedule to end this weekend. 

Like the U.S. report, the World Assessment for 2022 wasn't exactly loaded with cheery news. A main takeaway of this document is that not only are the effects of climate change getting worse, the rate at which things are going down the tubes has increased 

As I've noted in past posts, it seems every month this year has been fifth or sixth warmest on record on a global scale. (October was an exception, coming in a fourth warmest).

This provisional report says they indeed expect 2022 to be the world's sixth warmest year on record. The publication also says that the the years 2015-2022 will be the hottest eight year period since reliable records started around the mid 1850s.

As I've also noted in past posts, it's alarming that 2020 through 2022 have been so warm.  A Pacific Ocean pattern called La Nina has been present through most of this time.  La Nina cools large swaths of the eastern Pacific Ocean, which in turn tends to lower overall global temperatures a little bit. 

Which means this year and last should have been cooler than they were. The opposite pattern in the Pacific, called El Nino, tends to boost global temperatures a little bit. So it will be interesting when the next El Nino inevitably hits. Especially if it's a strong one, like in 1998. 

The report also notes that glaciers globally have taken a huge hit in 2022, especially in Europe, which endured repeated record heat waves over the summer. This year's European glacial loss has accelerated a decades long trend in melting. Switzerland has lost a third of its glacial ice since 2001.

Meanwhile, as The Weather Network reports, global sea level rise is accelerating, with devastating, dangerous effects:

"(Sea levels) continue to rise and are now an average of at least 100 millimeters (about four inches) higher than they were in the early 1990s. Also, the rate that the ocean surface is rising is accelerating. The rate over the past ten years has more than doubled from what it was 30 years ago, and roughly 10 percent of the total rise was seen in just the past two and a half years."

A four inch rise doesn't sound like much, but in low, flat coastal areas, of which there are many, four inches can really worsen flooding, especially when you mix in storms and storm surges. 

Look at it this way.  If a flood inundated the inside of your house with six inches of water, that would be terribly damaging. Then add another four inches to that, and the damage to your stuff is definitely compounded. 

Against the backdrop of these two reports, and many more released in recent weeks, the COP27 climate conference in Egypt continues into the weekend. to November 18.

It's a big global United Nations climate conference with the unwieldy name: The 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change." It's a yearly gathering first started in 1995, hence the 27 in the title.

Yeah, I'll stick with COP27

It IS an important meeting, though. COP27 is a continuation of trying to reach global cooperation on reducing greenhouse emissions, financing climate action and adapting to the growing effects of climate change. 

It's a great opportunity to basically put world leaders in the same room to (hopefully!) collaborate on climate change solutions. 

I know everybody's eyes glaze over when we start talking about big UN conferences, but it's worth watch how this one works out. The more global cooperation the better.