By M.Molina (Chair), J. McCarthy (Co-Chair), D. Wall (Co-Chair), R. Alley, K. Cobb, J. Cole, S. Das, N. Diffenbaugh, K. Emanuel, H. Frumkin, K. Hayhoe, C. Parmesan, M. Sheppard, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Climate Science Panel, March 2014
[Editor's note: As a highly unusual step, I appeal to the reader to carefully read this highly readable, educational and crucially important document. If you similarly find it important for others to read, please consider sending it to your friends and family asking them to read it and in turn sharing it with their family and friends. Global warming and catastrophic climate change threatens much of life on Earth. All citizens of the planet need to know about it and act to stop it. If you prefer a PDF copy click here. Thank you. KN.]
The overwhelming evidence of human-caused climate change documents both current impacts with significant costs and extraordinary future risks to society and natural systems. The scientific community has convened conferences, published reports, spoken out at forums and proclaimed, through statements by virtually every national scientific academy and relevant major scientific organization — including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) — that climate change puts the well-being of people of all nations at risk.
Surveys show that many Americans think climate change is still a topic of significant scientific disagreement.i Thus, it is important and increasingly urgent for the public to know there is now a high degree of agreement among climate scientists that human-caused climate change is real. Moreover, while the public is becoming aware that climate change is increasing the likelihood of certain local disasters, many people do not yet understand that there is a small, but real chance of abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes with highly damaging impacts on people in the United States and around the world.
It is not the purpose of this paper to explain why this disconnect between scientific knowledge and public perception has occurred. Nor are we seeking to provide yet another extensive review of the scientific evidence for climate change. Instead, we present key messages for every American about climate change.
1. Climate scientists agree: climate change is happening here and now.
Based on well- established evidence, about 97% of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening. This agreement is documented not just by a single study, but by a converging stream of evidence over the past two decades from surveys of scientists, content analyses of peer- reviewed studies, and public statements issued by virtually every membership organization of experts in this field. Average global temperature has increased by about 1.4 ̊ F over the last 100 years. Sea level is rising, and some types of extreme events – such as heat waves and heavy precipitation events– are happening more frequently. Recent scientific findings indicate that climate change is likely responsible for the increase in the intensity of many of these events in recent years.
2. We are at risk of pushing our climate system toward abrupt, unpredictable, and potentially irreversible changes with highly damaging impacts.
Earth’s climate is on a path to warm beyond the range of what has been experienced over the past millions of years.ii The range of uncertainty for the warming along the current emissions path is wide enough to encompass massively disruptive consequences to societies and ecosystems: as global temperatures rise, there is a real risk, however small, that one or more critical parts of the Earth’s climate system will experience abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes. Disturbingly, scientists do not know how much warming is required to trigger such changes to the climate system.
3. The sooner we act, the lower the risk and cost.
And there is much we can do. Waiting to take action will inevitably increase costs, escalate risk, and foreclose options to address the risk. The CO2 we produce accumulates in Earth’s atmosphere for decades, centuries, and longer. It is not like pollution from smog or wastes in our lakes and rivers, where levels respond quickly to the effects of targeted policies. The effects of CO2 emissions cannot be reversed from one generation to the next until there is a large- scale, cost-effective way to scrub carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Moreover, as emissions continue and warming increases, the risk increases.
By making informed choices now, we can reduce risks for future generations and yourselves, and help communities adapt to climate change. People have responded successfully to other major environmental challenges such as acid rain and the ozone hole with benefits greater than costs, and scientists working with economists believe there are ways to manage the risks of climate change while balancing current and future economic prosperity.
As scientists, it is not our role to tell people what they should do or must believe about the rising threat of climate change. But we consider it to be our responsibility as professionals to ensure, to the best of our ability, that people understand what we know: human-caused climate change is happening, we face risks of abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes, and responding now will lower the risk and cost of taking action.
Climate Reality
A. Climate Scientists Agree: Humans are driving climate change
Many Americans believe scientists disagree. Based on well-established evidence, about 97% of climate scientists have concluded that humans are changing the climate.
In 2013, only 42% of American adults understood that “most scientists think global warming is happening” and 33% said, “... there is a lot of disagreement among scientists about whether or not global warming is happening.” Twenty percent said they “don’t know enough to say.”iv
Even Americans who have come to recognize that climate change is occurring know there are limits to their ability to make this judgment from their own experiences. It might appear as if it’s raining more or less often, that it’s hotter than usual, or there are more storms than there once were. But is this true climate change, or just natural variation? Does a particularly cold or snowy winter, such as the one the eastern United States experienced in 2013 and 14, or variations in rate of in global surface temperature change, call global warming into question? If the climate is changing, are human activities or natural factors responsible?
Americans look to experts for guidance. If people believe the experts are in doubt about whether global warming is happening, it is no surprise that they will have less confidence in their own beliefs. Perceived expert disagreement has other consequences for the American people. Research shows that Americans who think the scientific experts disagree about human-caused climate change are less likely to believe that it might have serious consequences. Failure to appreciate the scientific consensus reduces support for a broad societal response to the challenges and risks that climate change presents.v
So let us be clear: Based on well-established evidence, about 97% of climate scientists conclude humans are changing the climate.
This widespread agreement is documented not by a single study but by a converging stream of evidence over the past two decades from polls of scientists,iii,iv content analyses of peer-reviewed literaturev,vi and from public statements issued by virtually every expert scientific membership organization on this topic.vii The evidence is overwhelming: levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are rising. Temperatures are going up. Springs are arriving earlier. Ice sheets are melting. Sea level is rising. The patterns of rainfall and drought are changing. Heat waves are getting worse as is extreme precipitation. The oceans are acidifying.
The science linking human activities to climate change is analogous to the science linking smoking to lung and cardiovascular diseases. Physicians, cardiovascular scientists, public health experts and others all agree smoking causes cancer. And this consensus among the health community has convinced most Americans that the health risks from smoking are real. A similar consensus now exists among climate scientists, a consensus that maintains climate change is happening, and human activity is the cause. The National Academy of Sciences, for example, says that “the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities.”viii
B. Climate change is happening now. And it is going to get worse.
Climate Change is already happening. More heat waves, greater sea level rise, and other changes with consequences for human health, natural ecosystems, and agriculture are already occurring in the United States and worldwide. These problems are very likely to become worse over the next 10-20 years and beyond.
No matter where they live, Americans are experiencing the effects of climate change. Of course, extreme weather events of varied intensity have always occurred. Family photo albums, community lore and history books recount the big storms, droughts and floods that communities have borne. Against this backdrop of natural variation, however, something different is happening. Greenhouse gases from manmade sources such as smokestacks and tailpipes have altered our climate system. Greenhouse gases have supercharged the climate just as steroids supercharged hitting in Major League Baseball. Over the course of a baseball season in the steroid era, we witnessed more – and longer – homers, even though we cannot attribute any specific homer to steroids. Similarly, even though we cannot attribute any particular weather event to climate change, some types of extreme events such as heat waves are now more frequent.
Extreme weather is not just an abstract concept. It is a reality that affects people across the country. In 2013, two out of three Americans said weather in the U.S. has been worse over the past several years, up 12 percentage points since spring 2012. Many (51%) say weather in their local area has been worse over the past several years. Not surprisingly, then, the gap between what we know as scientists (that global warming impacts are here and now) and what Americans perceive is narrowing: about six in 10 Americans already say, “global warming is affecting weather in the U.S.”ix
The core science of climate change
After remaining relatively stable at around 280 parts-per-million (ppm) for millennia, carbon dioxide (CO2) began to rise in the 19th century as people burned fossil fuels in ever-increasing amounts. This upward trend continues today with concentrations breaking the 400 ppm mark just last year. The rate of increase during the last 100 to 150 years has been much more rapid than in other periods of the Earth’s history. The warming effect of CO2 and other heat-trapping gases is well- established and can be demonstrated with simple science experiments and satellite observations. Without the natural “greenhouse” effect from gases in our atmosphere, Earth would be a frozen planet.
In addition to greenhouse gases, there are many other forces that can cause changes in the Earth’s climate – including the creation and destruction of the Earth’s crust, the planet’s wobbly path around (and tilt toward) the sun, variation in the sun’s energy output, volcanic eruptions, shifting ocean currents, and natural changes in CO2 and other greenhouse gases. These factors have driven the planet through eras of blazing heat and mile-thick ice sheets. But decades of human-generated greenhouse gases are now the major force driving the direction of climate change, currently overwhelming the effects of these other factors. Many studies show that the combined effects of natural drivers of climate cannot explain the temperature increase observed over the past half century.
Since the late 19th century, Earth’s global average temperature has risen by about 1.4° F. Although this may appear to be a small change, the Earth’s temperature has remained nearly as stable as that of the human body over the course of Western civilization. Just as a 1.4° F fever would be seen as significant in a child’s body, a similar change in our Earth’s temperature is also a concern for human society.
The difference was about 9° F between the last Ice Age, when half of North America was covered in a mile-thick ice sheet, and today. However, whereas that warming occurred over thousands of years, today’s atmosphere has already warmed by 1.4° F in just over 100 years. The projected rate of temperature change for this century is greater than that of any extended global warming period over the past 65 million years. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that continuing on a path of rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 could cause another 4 to 8° F warming before the year 2100.x
Here’s a brief summary of some the impacts of climate change that are already occurring and will increase over the coming years:
Sea Ice
Arctic sea ice has been shrinking dramatically, and the rate of loss is accelerating.xi In September 2012, Arctic summer sea ice fell to a new record low at half the historical average - a loss in area nearly twice the size of Alaska.xii
Ice Sheets and Glaciers
The melting of the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets has also accelerated notably.xiii Glaciers continue to melt rapidly, contributing to sea-level rise and also affecting water supplies for as many as a billion people around the world.xiv
Ocean Acidification
The oceans are absorbing much of the CO2 that smokestacks and tailpipes emit into the atmosphere. As a result, the oceans are rapidly acidifying, with early impacts on shelled organisms such as oysters already documented. The current acidification rate is likely the fastest in 300 million years.xv
Ecological Impacts
As the world has gotten hotter, many of the world’s plants and animals, on land and in the oceans, have begun moving toward the poles. Where possible, some terrestrial species are moving up mountainsides, and marine species are moving to deeper depths and higher latitudes. These changes are happening on every continent and in every ocean.xvixviixviii In some places seasonal behaviors are taking place two or three weeks earlier than they did just a few decades ago.xix The organisms that cannot adapt to the new climate conditions — because they cannot move fast enough or run out of room — will be worse off.
Extinctions are likely to increase, as climate change combines with other human-related environmental pressures. Moreover, the impacts of climate change on ecosystem processes such as decomposition, plant production and nutrient cycling – processes that determine how much fossil fuel-derived CO2 the land and ocean will continue to sequester in coming decades – remain largely unknown.
Sea Level Rise
Sea level rise has also accelerated, making storm surges higher and pushing salt water into the aquifers that coastal communities depend on for fresh water, and increasing the extent of coastal flooding. Over the last two decades, sea levels have risen almost twice as fast as the average during the 20th century.xx Salt-water intrusion can be witnessed in southern Florida, where sea level rise is contributing to salt water infiltration of coastal wells.xxi
Floods, Heat Waves and Droughts
Global warming has changed the pattern of precipitation worldwide.xxii Flooding in the northern half of the eastern U.S., Great Plains and over much of the Midwest has been increasing, especially over the last several decades. These regional flooding trends in the northeast and upper Midwest are linked to increases in extreme precipitation and are consistent with the global trends driven by climate change.xxiii At the same time, areas such as the U.S. Southwest are witnessing more droughts, and these too are consistent with global climate change patterns projected by climate models as a consequence of rising CO2 levels.xxiv
Wildfires
Since 1950, heat waves worldwide have become longer and more frequent.xxv One study indicates that the global area hit by extremely hot summertime temperatures has increased 50-fold,xxvi and the fingerprint of global warming has been firmly identified in these trends.xxvii In the U.S., new record high temperatures now regularly outnumber new record lows by a ratio of 2:1.xxviii
Climate change has amplified the threat of wildfires in many places. In the western U.S., both the area burned by wildfires as well as the length of the fire season have increased substantially in recent decades. Earlier spring snowmelt and higher spring and summer temperatures contribute to this change.xxix Climate change has increased the threat of “mega-fires” – large fires that burn proportionately greater areas.xxx Warming has also led to wildfires present in some regions where they have been absent in recent history.xxxi
Effects on Health and Wellbeing
Climate disruption is already affecting human health and well-being in many ways, and health threats are expected to intensify.xxxii Some of the well-understood impacts include the direct effects of heat and the effects of other weather conditions such as droughts, floods, and severe storms. Heat waves cause deaths and illness, with urban dwellers, the elderly, the poor, and certain other especially vulnerable groups.xxxiii While heat-related deaths and illnesses have diminished in recent decades,
thanks to better forecasting, early warning systems, and/or increased air conditioning, factors such as the aging of the population are expected to increase vulnerability.xxxiv Storms and floods can injure and kill victims in the short term while lingering consequences may range from mold growth in flooded buildings (aggravating asthma) to contaminated drinking water supplies to post-traumatic stress and other mental health disorders.xxxv,xxxvi Some air pollutants increase with climate change, with
the potential to aggravate heart and respiratory diseases. Some plant products such as ragweed pollen reach higher concentrations for longer stretches each year, affecting people with allergies. xxxvii,xxxviii, xxxix,xl
Scientists have extensively studied the impact of climate change on the risk of infectious diseases.xli Climate change affects the life cycle and distribution of disease-carrying “vectors”— mosquitoes, ticks, and rodents, which transmit such diseases as West Nile virus, equine encephalitis, Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Hantavirus.xlii There is uncertainty about how climate change will affect infectious disease risk, since many factors other than climate affect the spread of disease. The role of climate change on the ranges of vector-borne diseases in the U.S., such as Lyme disease, West Nile virus and dengue is an active area of research.xliii
Climate Change and National Security
Recent reports from U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and National Academy of Science studies have called attention to the implications of current and probable future climate change for U.S. national security.xliv They identify obvious coastal concerns relating to sea level rise, and others linked to storms, freshwater availability, and agricultural productivity around the globe. For example: “Climate change could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments. Climate change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase the spread of disease, and may spur or exacerbate mass migration.”xlv In the context of other global dynamics that give rise to political instability, and societal tensions, changes in climate are considered as potential threat multipliers or instability accelerants according to the CNA Military Advisory Board — a panel of our nation’s highest-ranking retired military leaders.xlvi Further, national security assets are often global first respondents to humanitarian needs associated with natural disasters including typhoons, hurricanes, and flooding.
Climate change can influence resource competition and place new burdens on economies, societies, and governance institutions. The reports call attention to the fact that these burdens can trigger violence. There is a growing recognition that the displacement of large numbers of people due to water scarcity and agricultural failure, as in the recent history of Syria, can exacerbate tensions that can lead to civil unrest. Senior officers and officials in the U.S. DOD are now regularly speaking publically about how an unabated rise in greenhouse gas emissions could add additional burdens to the infrastructure and mission capacity of our military forces.xlvii
II. CLIMATE RISKS
Given the high stakes, it is valuable to understand not just what is most likely to happen, but what might possibly happen to our climate. There is a possibility that temperatures will rise much higher and impacts will be much worse than expected. Moreover, as global temperature rises, the risk increases that one or more important parts of the Earth's climate system will experience changes that may be abrupt, unpredictable, and potentially irreversible, causing large damages and high costs. xlviii
We manage risk every day, often without thinking about it. We buckle our seat belts, latch our kids into car seats and buy insurance for a host of unlikely, but serious possibilities such as losing our homes or belongings to theft, fire or flood. We don’t think these things will happen, but we cannot be sure they won’t. Uncertainty means risk. Much of our day-to-day risk management is to lessen the danger directly. For example, we purchase cars with the latest safety devices and use these. But another form of risk management is to spread the risk, as with insurance. This helps with recovery if the unthinkable happens.
When we take the long view on climate change, we face these same uncertainties and risks. Climate projections for the year 2100 (when many children born this year will still be living) give a range of plausible temperatures. We are uncertain whether we will experience the high or low end of the range, but the risks of bad outcomes increase greatly at the high end of warming scenarios. By analogy, we are acting like people who take risks with their health (e.g., with behaviors like smoking, poor food choices) but still hoping to live long lives free of serious illness.
To make decisions about managing a risk, we consider the likelihood that a particular event will happen, the consequences if it did, and the cost of effective actions to prevent it. These are the same steps that go into making decisions about climate change. The process starts with an understanding of the risks. What is the likelihood that extreme climate changes will occur, and if they do, what consequences will we face? How much will it cost to prevent the risk?
A. High-risk scenarios: the high-side projections
Where there is a range of uncertainty, the high-side projections represent tail risk, a common concept in the world of finance. As most people understand, no investment is a sure thing. There is a range of possibilities about how that investment will fare. You could lose all you invested or make many times what you paid, but the most likely result is closer to the middle of these extremes. Although the chance of a very bad outcome — or tail risk — is small, it cannot be ignored. That is why advisors often recommend not investing any more than you can afford to lose.
With our future health and well-being at stake, it is common sense to consider the tail risks of climate change as a part of future plans. Consider the example of a seaside community in Florida. There are three futures to consider. Even under the most optimistic scenario (very aggressive greenhouse gas reductions and minimal melting), sea level is projected to rise about one foot this century.xlix The middle-of-the-road projection for the current pathway is about two feet. This is a fairly likely possibility. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates the probability of a sea level rise of 2 to 3 feet to be more than about 60%.l But the tail risk projection as forecast by the U.S. National Climate Assessment sees the community contending with a sea level rise of close to seven feet.li
Below are some of the high-side projections and tail risks we incur by following the current path for CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions. Most of these projections derive from computer simulations of Earth and its climate system. These models apply the best understanding science has to offer about how our climate works and how it will change in the future. There are many such models and all of them have been validated, to varying degrees, by their ability to replicate past climate changes.
Global Temperature
According to the IPCC, given the current pathway for carbon emissions the high-end of the “likely” range for the expected increase in global temperature is about 8 ̊ F by the end of the century.lii This is similar to the roughly 9° F warming that ended the last ice age. It is important to remember that temperature change due to CO2 emissions is essentially irreversible for several hundred years since this CO2 is removed from the atmosphere only very slowly by natural processes.liii
Floods, Heat Waves, Drought
Globally, if human society follows the high-end scenario, extreme heat events that currently occur only once every 20 years are projected to occur annually.liv Global warming will also lead to shifting precipitation patterns and concentration of precipitation into heavier downpours — critical risk factors for flooding and drought.
Sea Level
Sea level rise projections over the next century vary considerably, with the high-end scenarios yielding a rise of up to 6 or 7 feet by 2100. lv,lvi About 7 to 8 million people in the U.S. live within 6 feet of the local high tide line, and storm surge can extend flooding far beyond the high tide line, as witnessed in Superstorm Sandy.lvii Coastal flooding events that currently occur once every 100 years will occur much more frequently, possibly as often as yearly for many locations, rendering many cities and communities uninhabitable as is.lviii
Current greenhouse gas emissions would have considerable impact on sea level rise beyond the year 2100. In addition to driving sea level rise in the 21st century, current emissions might lead to dramatically higher sea level rise in the distant future, possibly beyond 16 feet, which is higher than the elevation of many major cities around the world. There is a slight risk that such large rise could occur faster than expected (see below).lix
B. Abrupt climate change
Most projections of climate change presume that future changes — greenhouse gas emissions, temperature increases and effects such as sea level rise — will happen incrementally. A given amount of emission will lead to a given amount of temperature increase that will lead to a given amount of smooth incremental sea level rise. However, the geological record for the climate reflects instances where a relatively small change in one element of climate led to abrupt changes in the system as a whole. In other words, pushing global temperatures past certain thresholds could trigger abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes that have massively disruptive and large-scale impacts. At that point, even if we do not add any additional CO2 to the atmosphere, potentially unstoppable processes are set in motion. We can think of this as sudden climate brake and steering failure where the problem and its consequences are no longer something we can control. In climate terms, abrupt change means change occurring over periods as short as decades or even years.lx
The risk of abrupt climate change is particularly challenging because, while plausible, we have few historical measurements to guide our judgment of likelihood. The financial meltdown of 2008 was a good example of this kind of risk. We had no history of intertwined real estate and financial markets to draw on, and few experts recognized the risk indicators that led to enormous and rapid economic consequences. It is no surprise that we use a metaphor like bursting bubbles for such highly damaging financial events. We do not recognize we are in one; things seem stable, until suddenly they are not.
If human emissions cause temperatures to increase toward the high end of our projections, we increase the risk that we will push parts of our climate system past certain thresholds that lead to abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes to our planet and impacts for Americans and people worldwide.
Some of the planetary climate-related systems — both physical and biological —that could trigger such abrupt changes for the planet, if pushed past their limits, include: large-scale ice sheet collapse, collapse of part of the Gulf Stream, dieback of the Amazon rainforest, and coral reef die-off. Disturbingly, there is low confidence in the estimates of the temperature thresholds that would trigger such changes. While some scenarios – such as the disruption of the Gulf Stream/Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and rapid methane release from the sea floor – based on the latest research are considered very unlikely, this does not mean their likelihood has gone to zero.lxi Given the complexity of these systems and uncertainties in how they will respond to high-end warming, there may be surprises that we are not yet aware of. As per the National Academy of Sciences Report on Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: “...‘dragons’ in the climate system still may exist.”lxii
Some potential climate change scenarios include: ecosystem collapse
Climate change threatens the collapse of some ecosystems and amplifies extinction pressures on species, which have already elevated extinction rates well above natural background rates.lxiii,lxiv,lxv The rate of climate change now may be as fast as any extended warming period over the past 65 million years, and it is projected to accelerate in the coming decades.lxvi When rapid climate change is added to other sources of extinction pressure such as ocean acidification, land use, invasive species, and/or exploitation, the resulting rates of extinction are likely to place our era among a handful of severe biodiversity crises in the Earth’s geological record.
Arctic sea ice collapse
Warmer Arctic temperatures have caused Arctic summer sea ice to shrink rapidly over the past decade, with potentially large consequences including shifts in climate and weather around the northern hemisphere. Projections suggest that late summer sea ice may disappear entirely in the coming decades.lxvii The loss of Arctic sea ice has serious consequences for the Earth’s climate system. Arctic sea ice covers an important portion of the planet’s surface and reflects sunlight back into space that would otherwise warm the ocean. The loss of Arctic sea ice creates a feedback loop, as lost ice leads to additional ocean warming. The ice loss has major effects on the Arctic, and may have effects on weather patterns extending into the lower latitudes.lxviii,lxix
Large-Scale Sea Ice Collapse
Large-scale melting of both the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets include large-scale losses of ice, potentially leading to tens of feet of sea level rise. While most of these losses are projected as being unlikely to occur before 2100, we may pass the point where these losses will be set in motion in the coming decades, with at least a slight chance that we have already done so.lxx
In Antarctica, marine ice/ice sheet instability threatens abrupt and large losses from both the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) and portions of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Any significant ice loss likely would be irreversible for thousands of years. Simulations of warming and ice loss during earlier warm periods of the last 5 million years indicate these areas can contribute 23 feet of sea level rise.lxxi
Some studies indicate that abrupt and irreversible ice loss from WAIS is possible, yet uncertainty regarding the threshold is such that it is not possible to say what temperature rise is necessary to trigger collapse.lxxii,lxxiii An abrupt change in the WAIS this century is deemed plausible, with an unknown but probably low probability.lxxiv Recently an acceleration of ice loss from the WAIS has been observed, and it is not possible to dismiss or confirm that these changes are associated with destabilization of the WAIS.lxxv
Destabilization of sea floor methane
Frozen methane in the shallow shelves of the Arctic Ocean represents an unlikely but potentially strong feedback loop in a warming climate. Methane is a short-lived but potent greenhouse gas. While the release of these deposits due to global warming is likely to be slow and mitigated by dissolution into the sea, these deposits are large and vulnerable to warming expected on the higher emission pathway.lxxvi The release of Arctic methane hydrates to the atmosphere would further increase, and perhaps substantially, the rate of global warming.lxxvii
Permafrost melt
The release of CO2 and methane from thawing Arctic permafrost represents another critical feedback loop triggered by global warming.
The amount of carbon stored in the permafrost is the largest reservoir of readily accessible organic carbon on land.lxxviii However, the positive feedback warming due to the loss of carbon from frozen soils is generally missing from the major climate change models.lxxix Not surprisingly, methane and carbon dioxide emissions from thawing permafrost are thus regarded as a key uncertainty in climate change projections.
Disturbingly, there is low confidence in the estimates of expected emissions from thawing permafrost.lxxx While an abrupt release on the timescale of a few decades is judged unlikely, this conclusion is based on immature science and sparse monitoring capabilities.lxxxi The high end of the best estimate range for the total carbon released from thawed permafrost by 2100 is 250 GtC on the higher pathway. Other individual estimates are far higher.lxxxii
III. CLIMATE RESPONSE
A. The sooner we act, the lower the risk and cost
The longer we wait to respond, the more the risks of climate change will increase. Conversely, the sooner we take action, the more options we will have to reduce risk and limit the human and economic cost of climate change.
What steps society takes to meet the challenge of climate change — the questions of when, how and to what extent we respond — is a matter on which all Americans must decide. We urge that these decisions be guided by two inescapable facts: first, the effects of any additional CO2 emissions will last for centuries; second, there is a risk of abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes in the Earth’s climate system with massively disruptive impacts.
Emissions of greenhouse gases today commit the planet to unavoidable warming and other impacts in the future. As we continue to increase greenhouse gas emissions, we accelerate and compound the effects and risks of climate change into the future. Conversely, the sooner we make a concerted effort to curtail the burning of fossil fuels as our primary energy source and releasing the CO2 to the air, the lower our risk and cost will be.
B. There is much we can do
We've successfully faced environmental challenges before. There's much we can do to respond to the challenge and risks of climate change, particularly by tapping America's strength in innovation.
The United States is one of the most resourceful and innovative societies in the world. We are a nation of problem solvers. When scientists identified the grave environmental threats posed by the acid rain and the ozone hole, they worked together with other stakeholders — consumers, industry and government — to develop solutions that would successfully reduce the threat while minimizing short- and long-term economic impacts. As we hope this paper has made clear, however, successfully responding to climate change will test our resolve and ingenuity in ways unlike any other environmental challenge we have faced.
Many of our major cities — New York, Seattle, Boston and Chicago are just a few — have assessed the scientific evidence, and decided to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for the impacts of climate change.
We believe that our responsibility as scientists is to ensure, to the best of our ability, that people fully understand the climate realities and risks we face. Prior experience shows that we and future generations will be better off when science effectively informs decision-making and action. Armed with scientific understanding about the gravity of certain environmental problems, our nation has successfully used innovative approaches to address these challenges.
In summary, responding effectively to the challenge of climate change requires a full understanding that there is now a high degree of agreement among climate scientists about the fact that climate change is happening now, because of human activities, and that the risks –including the possibility for abrupt and disruptive changes — will increase the longer greenhouse gas emissions continue.
Notes:
i Leiserowitz et al. (2013). “Climate change in the American mind: Americans’ global warming beliefs. Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George
Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. http://environment.yale.edu/climate-communication/files/Climate-Beliefs-April-2013.pdf
ii National Research Council (2013). Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
iii Doran, P. and M. Zimmerman (2009). Examining the scientific consensus on climate change. Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, 90 (3), 22-23. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009EO030002/abstract
iv Cook et al. (2013). Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature. Environmental Research Letters, 8 024024.
doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024
v Oreskes, N. (2004). The scientific consensus on climate change. Science, 306. http://cmbc.ucsd.edu/Research/Climate_Change/Oreskes%202004%20Climate%20change.pdf
vi Cook et al. (2013).
vii National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Consensus. http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific- consensus
viii National Research Council. (2010). Advancing the Science of Climate Change. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
ix Leiserowitz et al. (2013) Extreme weather and climate change in the American mind, April 2013. Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. http://www.climatechangecommunication.org/report/climate-change- american-mind-series-spring-2013
x IPCC (2013). Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Table SPM.2, Page 25.
xi IPCC (2013). AR5 WGI SPM.
xii National Snow and Ice Data Center, (2012). Arctic sea ice extent settles at record seasonal minimum. Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis, September 19, 2012. http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2012/09/arctic-sea-ice-extent-settles-at-record-seasonal-minimum/
xiii IPCC (2013). AR5 WGI SPM xiv IPCC (2013). AR5 WGI SPM
xv Hönisch et al. (2012). The geological record of ocean acidification. Science, 335 (6072), 1058-63. doi: 10.1126/science.1208277
xvi Parmesan, C. (2006). Ecological and evolutionary responses to recent climate change. Annual Review of Ecology Evolution and Systematics, 37, 637669.
xvii Cleland, E.E., Chuine, I., Menzel, A., Mooney, H.A. & Schwartz, M.D. (2007). Shifting plant phenology in response to global change. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 22, 357365.
xviii Parmesan, C. and Yohe, G. (2003). A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems. Nature, 421, 37-42.
xix Linderholm, Hans W. (2006). Review: Growing season changes in the last century. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 137. http://research.eeescience.utoledo.edu/lees/papers_PDF/Linderholm_2006_AFM.pdf
xx IPCC (2013). AR5 WGI SPM
xxi Langevin, C. D. and Zygnerski, M. (2013). Effect of sea-level rise on salt water intrusion near a coastal well field in southeastern Florida. Ground Water, 51, 781–803.
doi: 10.1111/j.1745-6584.2012.01008.x
xxii Trenberth, K. E. (2011). Changes in precipitation with climate change. Climate Research, 47, 123- 138.
xxiii Melillo et al. (2013). Third National Climate Assessment Draft Report. Washington, DC: United States Global Change Research Program.
xxiv Melillo et al. (2013).
xxv Trenberth, K.E., P.D. Jones, P. Ambenje, R. Bojariu, D. Easterling, A. Klein Tank, D. Parker, F. Rahimzadeh, J.A. Renwick, M. Rusticucci, B. Soden and P. Zhai. (2007). Chapter 3, Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M. Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.
xxvi Hansen, James, Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy. (2012). Perception of climate change. August 6, 2012. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10.1073/pnas.1205276109 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/07/30/1205276109.abstract
xxvii Gutowski, W.J., G.C. Hegerl, G.J. Holland, T.R. Knutson, L.O. Mearns, R.J. Stouffer, P.J. Webster, M.F. Wehner, F.W. Zwiers. (2008). Causes of Observed Changes in Extremes and Projections of Future Changes in Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate. Regions of Focus: North America, Hawaii, Caribbean, and U.S. Pacific Islands. T.R. Karl, G.A. Meehl, C.D. Miller, S.J. Hassol, A.M. Waple, and W.L. Murray (eds.). A Report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research, Washington, DC.
xxviii Meehl, G. A., C. Tebaldi, G. Walton, D. Easterling, and L. McDaniel. (2009). Relative increase of record high maximum temperatures compared to record low minimum temperatures in the U.S. Geophysical Research Letters, 36, L23701.
doi:10.1029/2009GL040736.
xxix Karl, T.R., G.A. Meehl, and T.C. Peterson. (2009). Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
xxx Melillo et al. (2013). xxxi Melillo et al. (2013).
xxxii McMichael T., Montgomery H., Costello A. (2012). Health risks, present and future, from global climate change. BMJ 2012; 344:e1359. doi: 10.1136/bmj.e1359
xxxiii Luber, G. and McGeehin, M. (2008). Climate change and extreme heat. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 35 (5), 429-435.
xxxiv Kalkstein, L.S., S. Greene, D.M. Mills, and J. Samenow. (2011). An evaluation of the progress in 30 reducing heat-related human mortality in major US cities. Natural Hazards, 56, 113-129.
xxxv Lane, K., Charles-Guzman, K., Wheeler, K., et al. (2013). Health effects of coastal storms and flooding in urban areas: A review and vulnerability assessment. Journal of Environmental and Public Health, 2013, (2013), Article ID 913064. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/913064
xxxvi Landesman, L.Y. (2005). Public Health Management of Disasters. Second Edition. Washington, DC: American Public Health Association.
xxxvii Kinney, P.L. (2008). Climate change, air quality, and human health. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 35, 459-467.
24
WHAT WE KNOW: THE REALITY, RISKS AND RESPONSE TO CLIMATE CHANGE
xxxviii Tagaris, E., K. Manomaiphiboon, K.J. Liao, L.R. Leung, J.H. Woo, S. He, P. Amar, and A.G. Russell. (2007). Impacts of global climate change and emissions on regional ozone and fine particulate matter concentrations over the United States. Journal of Geophysical Research, 2112, (33), D14312.
xxxix Ziska, L., K. Knowlton, C. Rogers, D. Dalan, N. Tierney, M.A. Elder, W. Filley, J. Shropshire, 16 L.B. Ford, and C. Hedberg. (2011). Recent warming by latitude associated with increased length 17 of ragweed pollen season in central North America. Proceedings of the National Academy of 18 Sciences, 108, 4248-4251.
xl Ariano, R., G.W. Canonica, and G. Passalacqua. (2010). Possible role of climate changes in 23 variations in pollen seasons and allergic sensitizations during 27 years. Annals of Allergy, 24 Asthma & Immunology, 104, 215-222.
xli Altizer S, Ostfeld RS, Johnson PT, Kutz S, Harvell CD. (2013). Climate change and infectious diseases: From evidence to a predictive framework. Science, 341 (6145), 514-9.
xlii Karl, T.R., G.A. Meehl, and T.C. Peterson. (2009). Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
xliii Karl, T.R. et al. (2009).
xliv United States Department of Defense (2011). 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review. Washington, DC. http://www.defense.gov/pubs/2014_Quadrennial_Defense_Review.pdf
xlv National Research Council (2011). National Security Implications of Climate Change for U.S. Naval Forces. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
xlvi Goodman, S., Sullivan, G. (2013). Climate change as a “threat multiplier.” Politico. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/climate-change-is-threat-multiplier-87338.html
xlvii Castellaw, Lt. Gen. J., Titley, R. Adm. D. (2014). The U.S. military leads on climate change. The Hill. http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/200412-the-us-military-leads-on-climate- change
xlviii National Research Council (2013). Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change.... xlix IPCC (2013). AR5 WGI SPM
l IPCC (2013). AR5 WGI SPM
li Melillo et al. (2013).
lii IPCC (2012). IPCC Guidance Note for Lead Authors of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report on Consistent Treatment of Uncertainties. “Likely” defined by the IPCC as a probability of 66% -100%.
liii IPCC (2013). Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
liv IPCC (2012). Managing the Risk of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation: Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
lv Melillo et al. (2013). lvi Melillo et al. (2013).
lviiStrauss, B.H. et al. (2012). Tidally adjusted estimates of topographic vulnerability to sea level rise and flooding for the contiguous United States. Environmental Research Letters, 7, 014033. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/7/1/014033
lviii IPCC (2013) WGI Technical Summary.
lix Strauss, B. (2013). Rapid accumulation of committed sea-level rise from global warming. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://assets.climatecentral.org/pdfs/Strauss-PNAS- 2013-v2.pdf
lx National Research Council (2013). Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change.... lxi National Research Council (2013). Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change.... lxii National Research Council (2013). Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change.... lxiii National Research Council (2013). Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change.... lxiv National Research Council (2013). Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change....
lxv Peterson, T.C., D.M. Anderson, S.J. Cohen, M. Cortez-Vázquez, R.J. Murnane, C. Parmesan, D. Phillips, R.S. Pulwarty, J.M.R. Stone. (2008). Why Weather and Climate Extremes Matter in Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate. Regions of Focus: North America, Hawaii, Caribbean, and U.S. Pacific Islands. T.R. Karl, G.A. Meehl, C.D. Miller, S.J. Hassol, A.M. Waple, and W.L. Murray (eds.). A Report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research, Washington, DC.
lxvi National Research Council (2013). Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change.... lxvii National Research Council (2013). Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change....
lxviii Francis, J. A. and S. J. Vavrus (2012) Evidence Linking Arctic Amplification to Extreme Weather in Mid-Latitudes, Geophysical Research Letters, 39, L06801. doi:10.1029/2012GL051000
lxix Tang, Q., X. Zhang, X. Yang, and J. A. Francis (2013). Cold winter extremes in northern continents linked to Arctic sea ice loss. Environmental Research Letters, 8, 014036.
lxx IPCC AR5 WGI Technical Summary.
lxxi IPCC AR5 WGI Technical Summary.
lxxii IPCC AR5 WGI Technical Summary.
lxxiii National Research Council (2013). Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change.... lxxiv National Research Council (2013). Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change.... lxxv IPCC AR5 WGI Technical Summary.
lxxvi IPCC AR5 WGI Technical Summary.
lxxvii IPCC AR5 WGI Technical Summary.
lxxviii IPCC AR5 WGI Technical Summary.
lxxix IPCC AR5 WGI Technical Summary.
lxxx IPCC AR5 WGI Technical Summary.
lxxxi National Research Council (2013). Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change.... lxxxii IPCC AR5 WGI Technical Summary.
[Editor's note: As a highly unusual step, I appeal to the reader to carefully read this highly readable, educational and crucially important document. If you similarly find it important for others to read, please consider sending it to your friends and family asking them to read it and in turn sharing it with their family and friends. Global warming and catastrophic climate change threatens much of life on Earth. All citizens of the planet need to know about it and act to stop it. If you prefer a PDF copy click here. Thank you. KN.]
The overwhelming evidence of human-caused climate change documents both current impacts with significant costs and extraordinary future risks to society and natural systems. The scientific community has convened conferences, published reports, spoken out at forums and proclaimed, through statements by virtually every national scientific academy and relevant major scientific organization — including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) — that climate change puts the well-being of people of all nations at risk.
Based on well- established evidence, about 97% of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening. This agreement is documented not just by a single study, but by a converging stream of evidence over the past two decades from surveys of scientists, content analyses of peer- reviewed studies, and public statements issued by virtually every membership organization of experts in this field. Average global temperature has increased by about 1.4 ̊ F over the last 100 years. Sea level is rising, and some types of extreme events – such as heat waves and heavy precipitation events– are happening more frequently. Recent scientific findings indicate that climate change is likely responsible for the increase in the intensity of many of these events in recent years.
Earth’s climate is on a path to warm beyond the range of what has been experienced over the past millions of years.ii The range of uncertainty for the warming along the current emissions path is wide enough to encompass massively disruptive consequences to societies and ecosystems: as global temperatures rise, there is a real risk, however small, that one or more critical parts of the Earth’s climate system will experience abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes. Disturbingly, scientists do not know how much warming is required to trigger such changes to the climate system.
And there is much we can do. Waiting to take action will inevitably increase costs, escalate risk, and foreclose options to address the risk. The CO2 we produce accumulates in Earth’s atmosphere for decades, centuries, and longer. It is not like pollution from smog or wastes in our lakes and rivers, where levels respond quickly to the effects of targeted policies. The effects of CO2 emissions cannot be reversed from one generation to the next until there is a large- scale, cost-effective way to scrub carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Moreover, as emissions continue and warming increases, the risk increases.
Many Americans believe scientists disagree. Based on well-established evidence, about 97% of climate scientists have concluded that humans are changing the climate.
Climate Change is already happening. More heat waves, greater sea level rise, and other changes with consequences for human health, natural ecosystems, and agriculture are already occurring in the United States and worldwide. These problems are very likely to become worse over the next 10-20 years and beyond.
Extreme weather is not just an abstract concept. It is a reality that affects people across the country. In 2013, two out of three Americans said weather in the U.S. has been worse over the past several years, up 12 percentage points since spring 2012. Many (51%) say weather in their local area has been worse over the past several years. Not surprisingly, then, the gap between what we know as scientists (that global warming impacts are here and now) and what Americans perceive is narrowing: about six in 10 Americans already say, “global warming is affecting weather in the U.S.”ix
After remaining relatively stable at around 280 parts-per-million (ppm) for millennia, carbon dioxide (CO2) began to rise in the 19th century as people burned fossil fuels in ever-increasing amounts. This upward trend continues today with concentrations breaking the 400 ppm mark just last year. The rate of increase during the last 100 to 150 years has been much more rapid than in other periods of the Earth’s history. The warming effect of CO2 and other heat-trapping gases is well- established and can be demonstrated with simple science experiments and satellite observations. Without the natural “greenhouse” effect from gases in our atmosphere, Earth would be a frozen planet.
Arctic sea ice has been shrinking dramatically, and the rate of loss is accelerating.xi In September 2012, Arctic summer sea ice fell to a new record low at half the historical average - a loss in area nearly twice the size of Alaska.xii
The melting of the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets has also accelerated notably.xiii Glaciers continue to melt rapidly, contributing to sea-level rise and also affecting water supplies for as many as a billion people around the world.xiv
The oceans are absorbing much of the CO2 that smokestacks and tailpipes emit into the atmosphere. As a result, the oceans are rapidly acidifying, with early impacts on shelled organisms such as oysters already documented. The current acidification rate is likely the fastest in 300 million years.xv
As the world has gotten hotter, many of the world’s plants and animals, on land and in the oceans, have begun moving toward the poles. Where possible, some terrestrial species are moving up mountainsides, and marine species are moving to deeper depths and higher latitudes. These changes are happening on every continent and in every ocean.xvixviixviii In some places seasonal behaviors are taking place two or three weeks earlier than they did just a few decades ago.xix The organisms that cannot adapt to the new climate conditions — because they cannot move fast enough or run out of room — will be worse off.
Sea level rise has also accelerated, making storm surges higher and pushing salt water into the aquifers that coastal communities depend on for fresh water, and increasing the extent of coastal flooding. Over the last two decades, sea levels have risen almost twice as fast as the average during the 20th century.xx Salt-water intrusion can be witnessed in southern Florida, where sea level rise is contributing to salt water infiltration of coastal wells.xxi
Global warming has changed the pattern of precipitation worldwide.xxii Flooding in the northern half of the eastern U.S., Great Plains and over much of the Midwest has been increasing, especially over the last several decades. These regional flooding trends in the northeast and upper Midwest are linked to increases in extreme precipitation and are consistent with the global trends driven by climate change.xxiii At the same time, areas such as the U.S. Southwest are witnessing more droughts, and these too are consistent with global climate change patterns projected by climate models as a consequence of rising CO2 levels.xxiv
Since 1950, heat waves worldwide have become longer and more frequent.xxv One study indicates that the global area hit by extremely hot summertime temperatures has increased 50-fold,xxvi and the fingerprint of global warming has been firmly identified in these trends.xxvii In the U.S., new record high temperatures now regularly outnumber new record lows by a ratio of 2:1.xxviii
Climate disruption is already affecting human health and well-being in many ways, and health threats are expected to intensify.xxxii Some of the well-understood impacts include the direct effects of heat and the effects of other weather conditions such as droughts, floods, and severe storms. Heat waves cause deaths and illness, with urban dwellers, the elderly, the poor, and certain other especially vulnerable groups.xxxiii While heat-related deaths and illnesses have diminished in recent decades,
thanks to better forecasting, early warning systems, and/or increased air conditioning, factors such as the aging of the population are expected to increase vulnerability.xxxiv Storms and floods can injure and kill victims in the short term while lingering consequences may range from mold growth in flooded buildings (aggravating asthma) to contaminated drinking water supplies to post-traumatic stress and other mental health disorders.xxxv,xxxvi Some air pollutants increase with climate change, with
the potential to aggravate heart and respiratory diseases. Some plant products such as ragweed pollen reach higher concentrations for longer stretches each year, affecting people with allergies. xxxvii,xxxviii, xxxix,xl
Recent reports from U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and National Academy of Science studies have called attention to the implications of current and probable future climate change for U.S. national security.xliv They identify obvious coastal concerns relating to sea level rise, and others linked to storms, freshwater availability, and agricultural productivity around the globe. For example: “Climate change could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments. Climate change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase the spread of disease, and may spur or exacerbate mass migration.”xlv In the context of other global dynamics that give rise to political instability, and societal tensions, changes in climate are considered as potential threat multipliers or instability accelerants according to the CNA Military Advisory Board — a panel of our nation’s highest-ranking retired military leaders.xlvi Further, national security assets are often global first respondents to humanitarian needs associated with natural disasters including typhoons, hurricanes, and flooding.
Given the high stakes, it is valuable to understand not just what is most likely to happen, but what might possibly happen to our climate. There is a possibility that temperatures will rise much higher and impacts will be much worse than expected. Moreover, as global temperature rises, the risk increases that one or more important parts of the Earth's climate system will experience changes that may be abrupt, unpredictable, and potentially irreversible, causing large damages and high costs. xlviii
Where there is a range of uncertainty, the high-side projections represent tail risk, a common concept in the world of finance. As most people understand, no investment is a sure thing. There is a range of possibilities about how that investment will fare. You could lose all you invested or make many times what you paid, but the most likely result is closer to the middle of these extremes. Although the chance of a very bad outcome — or tail risk — is small, it cannot be ignored. That is why advisors often recommend not investing any more than you can afford to lose.
According to the IPCC, given the current pathway for carbon emissions the high-end of the “likely” range for the expected increase in global temperature is about 8 ̊ F by the end of the century.lii This is similar to the roughly 9° F warming that ended the last ice age. It is important to remember that temperature change due to CO2 emissions is essentially irreversible for several hundred years since this CO2 is removed from the atmosphere only very slowly by natural processes.liii
Floods, Heat Waves, Drought
Globally, if human society follows the high-end scenario, extreme heat events that currently occur only once every 20 years are projected to occur annually.liv Global warming will also lead to shifting precipitation patterns and concentration of precipitation into heavier downpours — critical risk factors for flooding and drought.
Sea level rise projections over the next century vary considerably, with the high-end scenarios yielding a rise of up to 6 or 7 feet by 2100. lv,lvi About 7 to 8 million people in the U.S. live within 6 feet of the local high tide line, and storm surge can extend flooding far beyond the high tide line, as witnessed in Superstorm Sandy.lvii Coastal flooding events that currently occur once every 100 years will occur much more frequently, possibly as often as yearly for many locations, rendering many cities and communities uninhabitable as is.lviii
Most projections of climate change presume that future changes — greenhouse gas emissions, temperature increases and effects such as sea level rise — will happen incrementally. A given amount of emission will lead to a given amount of temperature increase that will lead to a given amount of smooth incremental sea level rise. However, the geological record for the climate reflects instances where a relatively small change in one element of climate led to abrupt changes in the system as a whole. In other words, pushing global temperatures past certain thresholds could trigger abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes that have massively disruptive and large-scale impacts. At that point, even if we do not add any additional CO2 to the atmosphere, potentially unstoppable processes are set in motion. We can think of this as sudden climate brake and steering failure where the problem and its consequences are no longer something we can control. In climate terms, abrupt change means change occurring over periods as short as decades or even years.lx
If human emissions cause temperatures to increase toward the high end of our projections, we increase the risk that we will push parts of our climate system past certain thresholds that lead to abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes to our planet and impacts for Americans and people worldwide.
Climate change threatens the collapse of some ecosystems and amplifies extinction pressures on species, which have already elevated extinction rates well above natural background rates.lxiii,lxiv,lxv The rate of climate change now may be as fast as any extended warming period over the past 65 million years, and it is projected to accelerate in the coming decades.lxvi When rapid climate change is added to other sources of extinction pressure such as ocean acidification, land use, invasive species, and/or exploitation, the resulting rates of extinction are likely to place our era among a handful of severe biodiversity crises in the Earth’s geological record.
Warmer Arctic temperatures have caused Arctic summer sea ice to shrink rapidly over the past decade, with potentially large consequences including shifts in climate and weather around the northern hemisphere. Projections suggest that late summer sea ice may disappear entirely in the coming decades.lxvii The loss of Arctic sea ice has serious consequences for the Earth’s climate system. Arctic sea ice covers an important portion of the planet’s surface and reflects sunlight back into space that would otherwise warm the ocean. The loss of Arctic sea ice creates a feedback loop, as lost ice leads to additional ocean warming. The ice loss has major effects on the Arctic, and may have effects on weather patterns extending into the lower latitudes.lxviii,lxix
Large-scale melting of both the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets include large-scale losses of ice, potentially leading to tens of feet of sea level rise. While most of these losses are projected as being unlikely to occur before 2100, we may pass the point where these losses will be set in motion in the coming decades, with at least a slight chance that we have already done so.lxx
Frozen methane in the shallow shelves of the Arctic Ocean represents an unlikely but potentially strong feedback loop in a warming climate. Methane is a short-lived but potent greenhouse gas. While the release of these deposits due to global warming is likely to be slow and mitigated by dissolution into the sea, these deposits are large and vulnerable to warming expected on the higher emission pathway.lxxvi The release of Arctic methane hydrates to the atmosphere would further increase, and perhaps substantially, the rate of global warming.lxxvii
The release of CO2 and methane from thawing Arctic permafrost represents another critical feedback loop triggered by global warming.
Disturbingly, there is low confidence in the estimates of expected emissions from thawing permafrost.lxxx While an abrupt release on the timescale of a few decades is judged unlikely, this conclusion is based on immature science and sparse monitoring capabilities.lxxxi The high end of the best estimate range for the total carbon released from thawed permafrost by 2100 is 250 GtC on the higher pathway. Other individual estimates are far higher.lxxxii
The longer we wait to respond, the more the risks of climate change will increase. Conversely, the sooner we take action, the more options we will have to reduce risk and limit the human and economic cost of climate change.
We've successfully faced environmental challenges before. There's much we can do to respond to the challenge and risks of climate change, particularly by tapping America's strength in innovation.
i Leiserowitz et al. (2013). “Climate change in the American mind: Americans’ global warming beliefs. Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George
Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. http://environment.yale.edu/climate-communication/files/Climate-Beliefs-April-2013.pdf
ii National Research Council (2013). Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
iii Doran, P. and M. Zimmerman (2009). Examining the scientific consensus on climate change. Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, 90 (3), 22-23. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009EO030002/abstract
iv Cook et al. (2013). Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature. Environmental Research Letters, 8 024024.
doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024
v Oreskes, N. (2004). The scientific consensus on climate change. Science, 306. http://cmbc.ucsd.edu/Research/Climate_Change/Oreskes%202004%20Climate%20change.pdf
vi Cook et al. (2013).
vii National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Consensus. http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific- consensus
viii National Research Council. (2010). Advancing the Science of Climate Change. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
ix Leiserowitz et al. (2013) Extreme weather and climate change in the American mind, April 2013. Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. http://www.climatechangecommunication.org/report/climate-change- american-mind-series-spring-2013
x IPCC (2013). Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Table SPM.2, Page 25.
xi IPCC (2013). AR5 WGI SPM.
xii National Snow and Ice Data Center, (2012). Arctic sea ice extent settles at record seasonal minimum. Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis, September 19, 2012. http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2012/09/arctic-sea-ice-extent-settles-at-record-seasonal-minimum/
xiii IPCC (2013). AR5 WGI SPM xiv IPCC (2013). AR5 WGI SPM
xv Hönisch et al. (2012). The geological record of ocean acidification. Science, 335 (6072), 1058-63. doi: 10.1126/science.1208277
xvi Parmesan, C. (2006). Ecological and evolutionary responses to recent climate change. Annual Review of Ecology Evolution and Systematics, 37, 637669.
xvii Cleland, E.E., Chuine, I., Menzel, A., Mooney, H.A. & Schwartz, M.D. (2007). Shifting plant phenology in response to global change. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 22, 357365.
xviii Parmesan, C. and Yohe, G. (2003). A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems. Nature, 421, 37-42.
xix Linderholm, Hans W. (2006). Review: Growing season changes in the last century. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 137. http://research.eeescience.utoledo.edu/lees/papers_PDF/Linderholm_2006_AFM.pdf
xx IPCC (2013). AR5 WGI SPM
xxi Langevin, C. D. and Zygnerski, M. (2013). Effect of sea-level rise on salt water intrusion near a coastal well field in southeastern Florida. Ground Water, 51, 781–803.
doi: 10.1111/j.1745-6584.2012.01008.x
xxii Trenberth, K. E. (2011). Changes in precipitation with climate change. Climate Research, 47, 123- 138.
xxiii Melillo et al. (2013). Third National Climate Assessment Draft Report. Washington, DC: United States Global Change Research Program.
xxiv Melillo et al. (2013).
xxv Trenberth, K.E., P.D. Jones, P. Ambenje, R. Bojariu, D. Easterling, A. Klein Tank, D. Parker, F. Rahimzadeh, J.A. Renwick, M. Rusticucci, B. Soden and P. Zhai. (2007). Chapter 3, Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M. Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.
xxvi Hansen, James, Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy. (2012). Perception of climate change. August 6, 2012. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10.1073/pnas.1205276109 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/07/30/1205276109.abstract
xxvii Gutowski, W.J., G.C. Hegerl, G.J. Holland, T.R. Knutson, L.O. Mearns, R.J. Stouffer, P.J. Webster, M.F. Wehner, F.W. Zwiers. (2008). Causes of Observed Changes in Extremes and Projections of Future Changes in Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate. Regions of Focus: North America, Hawaii, Caribbean, and U.S. Pacific Islands. T.R. Karl, G.A. Meehl, C.D. Miller, S.J. Hassol, A.M. Waple, and W.L. Murray (eds.). A Report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research, Washington, DC.
xxviii Meehl, G. A., C. Tebaldi, G. Walton, D. Easterling, and L. McDaniel. (2009). Relative increase of record high maximum temperatures compared to record low minimum temperatures in the U.S. Geophysical Research Letters, 36, L23701.
doi:10.1029/2009GL040736.
xxix Karl, T.R., G.A. Meehl, and T.C. Peterson. (2009). Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
xxx Melillo et al. (2013). xxxi Melillo et al. (2013).
xxxii McMichael T., Montgomery H., Costello A. (2012). Health risks, present and future, from global climate change. BMJ 2012; 344:e1359. doi: 10.1136/bmj.e1359
xxxiii Luber, G. and McGeehin, M. (2008). Climate change and extreme heat. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 35 (5), 429-435.
xxxiv Kalkstein, L.S., S. Greene, D.M. Mills, and J. Samenow. (2011). An evaluation of the progress in 30 reducing heat-related human mortality in major US cities. Natural Hazards, 56, 113-129.
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WHAT WE KNOW: THE REALITY, RISKS AND RESPONSE TO CLIMATE CHANGE
xxxviii Tagaris, E., K. Manomaiphiboon, K.J. Liao, L.R. Leung, J.H. Woo, S. He, P. Amar, and A.G. Russell. (2007). Impacts of global climate change and emissions on regional ozone and fine particulate matter concentrations over the United States. Journal of Geophysical Research, 2112, (33), D14312.
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xl Ariano, R., G.W. Canonica, and G. Passalacqua. (2010). Possible role of climate changes in 23 variations in pollen seasons and allergic sensitizations during 27 years. Annals of Allergy, 24 Asthma & Immunology, 104, 215-222.
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xliv United States Department of Defense (2011). 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review. Washington, DC. http://www.defense.gov/pubs/2014_Quadrennial_Defense_Review.pdf
xlv National Research Council (2011). National Security Implications of Climate Change for U.S. Naval Forces. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
xlvi Goodman, S., Sullivan, G. (2013). Climate change as a “threat multiplier.” Politico. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/climate-change-is-threat-multiplier-87338.html
xlvii Castellaw, Lt. Gen. J., Titley, R. Adm. D. (2014). The U.S. military leads on climate change. The Hill. http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/200412-the-us-military-leads-on-climate- change
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lxv Peterson, T.C., D.M. Anderson, S.J. Cohen, M. Cortez-Vázquez, R.J. Murnane, C. Parmesan, D. Phillips, R.S. Pulwarty, J.M.R. Stone. (2008). Why Weather and Climate Extremes Matter in Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate. Regions of Focus: North America, Hawaii, Caribbean, and U.S. Pacific Islands. T.R. Karl, G.A. Meehl, C.D. Miller, S.J. Hassol, A.M. Waple, and W.L. Murray (eds.). A Report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research, Washington, DC.
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lxxvi IPCC AR5 WGI Technical Summary.
lxxvii IPCC AR5 WGI Technical Summary.
lxxviii IPCC AR5 WGI Technical Summary.
lxxix IPCC AR5 WGI Technical Summary.
lxxx IPCC AR5 WGI Technical Summary.
lxxxi National Research Council (2013). Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change.... lxxxii IPCC AR5 WGI Technical Summary.
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