Facts on the Ground:
The number, size, destructiveness, and lethality of recent extreme weather events has been extraordinary. In mid-Feb Cyclone Gabrielle inundated parts of New Zealand. The record-breaking storm killed 5 people, over 3,500 were missing, 10,000 were displaced, and led to a declaration of emergency. The cost of recovery is likely to exceed $1 billion. Crops were ruined on the east coast of the North Island, known as New Zealand’s “fruit bowl.” Farther north, in Northland, a farmer, Jason Smith, said “We are facing potentially a yield of 5 percent of what it normally is.” “There is still standing water, acres and acres of standing water now, kind of three days later, and you go, ‘Well, we’ve never had that before.’” “The power poles and lines were basically ripped out of the ground by the force of the wind,” disconnecting the region from the national grid.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said that climate change would bring more such storms, and that New Zealand would have to ensure that its transportation, energy and communications systems were “as robust as possible.” “We are going to see more of these types of events and making sure that we are prepared for them is going to require a significant amount of time, energy and investment.”
James Shaw, the co-leader of New Zealand’s Green Party, angrily berated lawmakers for years of inaction on climate change. “We cannot put our heads in the sand when the beach is flooding.” “We must act now.”
Extreme cold set records in early Feb in the NE US. On Feb 4 Boston hit −10F, and Nantucket −3F which tied a record low (in both 2004 and 1962). Portland, Maine had a record low wind chill of −45F. Bridgeport, Connecticut had −4F which broke the previous record by 9F. Burlington, Vermont had −15F on February 4, which caused steam devils on Lake Champlain. Mount Washington in New Hampshire had a record-breaking wind chill of −108F. In NYC, the low in Central Park on February 4 was 3F, while LaGuardia Airport had a record low of 5F and JFK International Airport’s low of 4F also a record. Boston set another record, their fastest 30-hour temperature rise, hitting 50F on Feb 5.
On Feb. 1 a dangerous storm drifted across parts of the Southern Plains and Southeast causing disruption to travel and widespread power outages. More than 324,000 customers in Texas were without electricity. More than 2,300 flights were canceled. At least two deaths in Texas were attributed to the storm.
On Jan. 31, the police in Arlington, Texas, said that one person had died in a rollover accident and there was one fatality in a crash that involved 10 vehicles. In Travis County, a deputy was struck by an 18-wheel truck and was pinned beneath one its tires after attempting to help a disabled truck on the highway.
In Arkansas, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency. State officials in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee asked drivers to stay off the roads.
This winter brought a wide range of weather conditions to large parts of the South. A tornado damaged communities southeast of Houston, destroying a senior assisted-living center and knocking out power. In Louisiana, three people were hospitalized with injuries after storms damaged mobile homes northwest of Baton Rouge. At least eight people were killed by severe storms and tornadoes in Alabama and Georgia.
Early this winter, New York City and other down-state major cities along the I-95 corridor experienced some of their least snowy seasons in the last 50 years. NY’s Central Park was without a ‘measurable snowfall’, a technical definition that starts at a tenth of an inch, through Jan. On Feb 1 it received not even half an inch. Washington, Philadelphia and Baltimore also had yet to receive a measurable snowfall through Jan. Boston and Providence and Newark were also below average. Chicago was nearly 10” below normal levels.
But Minneapolis had one of its snowiest winters of the past half century. Such extreme variation was seen in Syracuse, one of America’s snowiest cities averaging more than 120” annually, received just 25” of snow through Jan, putting it three feet behind the norm for this time of year. Rochester received fewer than 15” compared with a typical 50” by this time. But Buffalo is having one of its snowiest winters in the last 50 years. It got about half of its season’s snow during one deadly blizzard.
This concentrated, dangerous, extreme snowfall is predicted to become more common as the climate warms. Climate models show that warmer temperatures will mean fewer but more intense snowstorms, as warmer air holds more water vapor. “Climate change, I think, has taken kind of a volatile situation and made it even more volatile,” said Judah Cohen, a climate scientist.
A fresh wave of storms inundated California in mid-Jan swelling rivers, downing power lines and imperiling travelers as a procession of ‘atmospheric rivers’ continued to batter the state. At least 19 people have died since late December in a series of powerful storms that unleashed destructive downpours from the North Coast to the southern border over a two-and-a-half-week period. The state’s northern and central regions sustained the most damage: Levees broke, thousands of trees fell, towering waves shattered piers and mudslides blocked highways. Flash flooding shut down critical roads in the valleys and coastal areas, and heavy snow blocked passages east over mountain ranges.
Millions of residents from Eureka to San Diego were under flood advisories. Across the state more than 75,000 people were under evacuation orders and warnings. More than 23,000 customers were without power statewide. A federal emergency declaration covered much of the state, with the cost of damage expected to exceed $1 billion. Nancy Ward, the director of the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, described the onslaught as “among the most deadly natural disasters in the modern history of our state.”
In Southern California, Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles declared a state of emergency, anticipating mudslides and flooding. In Northern California, roads were a lethal maze of floodwater, landslides, downed trees, blowing snow, spinouts and closures. In San Luis Obispo County, the authorities, citing unsafe conditions, temporarily paused the search for Kyle Doan, a 5-year-old who disappeared down a rushing creek after being ripped from his mother’s arms as they tried to escape from floodwaters rising around their car. At Donner Summit, scientists at the Central Sierra Snow Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, reported more than 2’ of snowfall in under 36 hours.
Since late Dec., California has been swamped by eight atmospheric rivers, a weather phenomenon that gathers moisture into a powerful band and then unleashes intense blasts of precipitation. At least five of the atmospheric rivers have been powerful enough to be categorized as “strong” or greater, said Chad Hecht, a meteorologist. That is nearly as many intense atmospheric rivers as the state normally sees in a year.
Rainfall totals through mid-Jan were 400 to 600% above average, according to the National Weather Service. In some parts of Northern California, more rain has been recorded in a three-week period than would normally fall in six months. There has been an increase in the statewide average snowpack to 226% of the average for this time of year.
As climate change amplifies normal extremes of drought and flooding, climate scientists say, the state has become increasingly subject to persistent and sometimes violent “weather whiplash.” Daniel Swain, a U.C.L.A. climatologist, said that climate change had essentially doubled the likelihood of storm sequences even more extreme than the one currently sweeping California.
At least eight people were killed as severe storms and tornadoes caused damage across the South in mid-Jan. Seven of the deaths were in Autauga County, Ala., including a woman whose body was found in a destroyed home. In Butts County, Ga., a 5-year-old boy was killed when a tree hit the vehicle he was in. Tens of thousands of customers were without power in parts of Alabama and Georgia as of Jan. 13. More than 6.8 million people across Alabama and Georgia had been under a tornado watch and the governors of both states declared states of emergency. In Tallapoosa County, Ala., a trooper was taken to the hospital with injuries after a tree fell and hit his car, crushing it.
In the county seat, Griffin, violent winds tore apart buildings and felled trees, according to Jessica Diane Pitts, a resident. “You could hear stuff being ripped to pieces and people screaming in fear!” “I hope I never experience something like this again!” In Mississippi, one home in Monroe County was flattened and many others sustained roof and other damage.
Unrelenting rains, which started on Jan.8, flooded parts of Los Angeles, killed at least 17 people statewide and led to evacuation orders for nearly 50,000 residents across California as rivers rose and mudslide fears grew. Experts say the cost of the damage could top $1 billion. In San Francisco, pea-sized hail pelted roofs and windows. A flash flood warning was in effect throughout the city. Rainfall in many parts of the state had exceeded a foot when the atmospheric river swept across Northern California and spread to Central and Southern California. Parts of Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties had received more than 16” of rain in 48 hours, leading to evacuations and flood alerts. More than 34 million people, mostly in Southern and Central California, were under a flood watch as of Jan 10. Nearly 200,000 customers, mostly in Santa Clara County, were without power.
Concerns over flooding followed a chaotic day in Santa Barbara County, where officials ordered thousands of residents to quickly evacuate coastal communities over worries of mudslides in the area where wildfires have made the ground less stable. The orders were issued five years to the day that a torrent of mud and boulders rushed through neighborhoods in Montecito, killing 23 people. One person was killed by floodwater while trying to navigate a submerged road in San Luis Obispo County, north of Santa Barbara.
Dangerous conditions were also reported in Montecito and other parts of Santa Cruz County. More than 30,000 residents were evacuated as creeks and rivers topped their banks, threatened homes and washed away at least one bridge. Mudslides also blocked at least two highways that connect the Santa Cruz Mountains to the Bay Area.
San Francisco ran out of sandbags to provide to residents after another “atmospheric river” swamped the West Coast on Jan. 4. In Northern California, several parks were closed because of the threat that strong wind gusts would topple trees. The office of Gov. Gavin Newsom said that the state’s operations center was at its highest emergency level. As the storm approached, a mandatory evacuation order was issued in the flood-prone city of Watsonville and other parts of Santa Cruz County. The city of San Jose declared a local emergency, as did the adjacent counties of San Mateo and Santa Cruz.
Huge amounts of snow fell in the Sierra Nevada mountain range which supplies about 30% of the state’s water. The snowy mountain caps act as crucial water storage until the snow melts during drier, warmer months, sending fresh water into the state’s rivers and reservoirs. Still, officials cautioned residents to conserve. They pointed to significant December snowfall in 2021, which gave way to the driest January, February and March on record.
On Jan.2 a “multi-hazard storm” formed from the same “atmospheric river” system that drowned California, causing record rainfall and flooding in the bay area, threatened the Central and Northern Plains, the Western Great Lakes and parts of the South. Approximately 35 million people could be impacted by severe thunderstorms, said Bill Bunting, the chief of forecast operations for the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center.
In Colorado, the National Weather Service attributed flight delays and cancelations in Denver to limited visibility for pilots due to freezing fog, after earlier severe flight disruptions at airports.
An atmospheric river drenched the West Coast on Dec. 26 killing at least five people. Another storm system swamped California again before hurtling east across the country, spawning strong tornadoes, thunderstorms and flooding in parts of the Plains, Upper Midwest and South after dropping four feet of snow on Utah and almost a foot of snow in parts of Arizona. The winter storm that ravaged much of the US and Canada through Christmas lived up to its billing as a “once in a generation” event.
Winters, like the other seasons, have been getting warmer in the US and this is more obvious in northern areas like the Great Lakes and the Northeast. An analysis by Climate Central, an independent research and communications group, found that winter temperatures in the US have increased by more than 3F (a little less than 2C) over the past half-century. Cold snaps still occur, and the one that began a few days before Christmas was extreme. In some areas snow totals were off the charts. Buffalo received a record 22” of snow on Dec. 23.
In late Dec., a “deep and fast-moving” storm system, “Atlantic River” (a channel of wind in the atmosphere that transports water vapor from the tropics), battered parts of northwest California and Oregon. The greatest risk was in previously burned areas along the coast, where rapid, prolonged rainfall caused mudslides or debris flows. About 2-6” of rain fell in the hardest hit areas. Close to five million people in the Seattle and Portland, Ore., metro areas were under high wind warnings with sustained wind speeds reaching up to 30 mph and gusts of up to 60 mph. In Portland, the heavy downpour flooded roads and rivers, while high winds felled trees and power lines. More than 135,000 customers were without power across Oregon as of Dec. 27. More than 60,000 customers had also lost power in California and Washington State.
The Bay Area, Calif., was also hammered by the storm in late Dec., with rain flooding roadways across the region. In other parts of the Bay Area, roads were closed after high winds knocked down trees and power lines. In San Ramon, Calif., the wild weather caused the collapse of a roof at a Big 5 Sporting Goods store.
The death toll in Western New York exceeded 30 in Erie and Niagara Counties as of Dec. 27 from the region’s most severe blizzard in recent memory. About 20,000 households lost power. The Buffalo Niagara International Airport and all county offices in Erie County were closed.
On Dec.23 more than 200 million people, about two-thirds of the US population, were under warnings or advisories for winter weather. More than 3,400 flights were canceled in the US and local authorities across the country advised caution as high winds combined with heavy snow to create whiteout condition. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport closed its runways because of ice. Hundreds of flights were canceled as freezing rain moved through the region. More than 250 flights were canceled at the three major airports in the NYC area.
The rapidly intensifying storm is what meteorologists called a “bomb cyclone,” which means the barometric pressure dropped at least 24 millibars (a measure of air pressure) in 24 hours. The ‘bomb cyclone’ battered much of the eastern half of the US. John Moore, a meteorologist and spokesman for the National Weather Service, said conditions for a bomb cyclone had been met over the Great Lakes, where frigid Arctic air from the polar vortex met very warm air to the east. Air pressure dropped to at least 862 millibars, while elsewhere it was as high as 1047 millibars. “It’s a really sharp gradient,” he said. The flags along North Main Street in Hudson, Ohio, were frozen solid as temperatures dipped below zero degrees. Overnight, temperatures fell from 39F at midnight to minus 4.
The storm knocked out power to 1,146,838 customers in the US as of Dec. 23. North Carolina was hit the hardest with more than 147,000 customers without power, but outages were reported from Texas to Maine. More than 130,000 customers in Quebec were without power and more than 25,000 were without power in Ontario.
Some tidal gauge locations, like Sandy Hook, NJ, reached the highest storm tide since Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The tide level peaked at 8.89’ on Dec. 23.
An approximately 200-mile stretch of Interstate 90, the massive highway that crosses the northern tier of the US, had to be closed because of high winds and blizzard-like conditions, while more than 10,000 US flights had been disrupted.
The storm system continued to bring heavy snow and blizzard conditions to the Plains and Upper Midwest in mid-Dec. More than 35 million people across the US were under alerts for winter weather and more than 500,000 people were under a blizzard warning in parts of Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming.
More than a dozen states were affected by the storm system in mid-Dec. A line of storms moved across North Texas and into Louisiana spawned strong tornadoes that killed at least three people. Over a million people were under warnings for ice storms in parts of the Mid-Atlantic, including in far northwestern Virginia, and south-central Pennsylvania.
A deadly tornado swept through New Orleans in mid-Dec, one of more than four dozen reported tornadoes the storm system spawned from Texas to Florida. The storm left heavy snow in its wake. Winds of up to 55 mph, combined with the snow, forced road closures across the Northern and Central High Plains, including parts of Interstates 80, 90 and 94.
On Dec. 14, the body of a woman was found after a tornado destroyed her home in Keithville, La. Her young son was also killed. At least 20 people were injured, some critically, as a tornado struck through Union Parish, La. The storm leveled part of a large apartment complex and several mobile homes. Farther west, another tornado damaged several homes near Four Forks, La.
Across Texas and Oklahoma, more than two dozen people were injured in the mid-Dec. storms, including at least seven people who were hospitalized. One of the tornadoes hit near Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport where passengers were briefly urged to shelter in place as more than 1,000 flights were delayed. In Decatur, Texas on Dec. 13, a third tornado, which the Weather Service described as “large and extremely dangerous,” injured two people. One person was injured by flying debris and treated at the scene, and another person was taken to a hospital after high winds overturned an eighteen-wheeler truck. There were multiple reports of damage to homes and businesses. Five people were hospitalized after injuries from the storm.
A fourth tornado struck Wayne, Okla., and traveled for at least three miles with winds reaching 125 mph. Multiple homes and barns were damaged, and power poles and trees were downed.
Researchers say that tornadoes in recent years seem to be occurring in greater “clusters,” and that the area of the country known as Tornado Alley appears to be shifting eastward. The timing of tornado seasons is also becoming more unpredictable with more early and late starts compared with decades ago.
On Dec. 13, there were two reports of injuries and “multiple reports of homes and businesses damaged” in Wise County, northwest of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where one of the tornadoes touched down. About 760 flights into and out of the airport were delayed and 79 were cancelled. The Grapevine Police Department said that five people were injured in the storms and had been hospitalized. More than 7,000 customers in Texas were without power.
Nearly 16 million people from Arizona up to Montana and across to Minnesota were under either a winter weather advisory or winter storm warning as of Dec. 12, as a major winter storm inched across the country. In the Sierra Nevada, snow fell at a rapid rate of roughly 3” per hour, blanketing roads and creating “nearly impossible travel” and “near-zero visibility. The Sugar Bowl Resort, in the skiing areas of mountainous Norden, Calif., reported nearly 4’ of snow. Other parts in the region saw 2-5’ of snow, which caused some highways near mountains to close. In San Luis Obispo County, near the central coast of California, roadways were flooded and strong winds with gusts of more than 60 mph brought down power lines.
A storm system came ashore in California on Dec. 9, bringing strong winds and rain. But in the mountains that moisture fell as heavy snow. Forecasters had predicted “extreme impacts”, the gravest warning on the Weather Service’s winter storm severity scale, across the Sierra Nevada.
An unusually warm start to January broke dozens of weather records across Europe. Meteorologists called the warm spell and the records it broke “staggering,” as several countries saw the hottest start to the year ever measured. In Brest, Belarus, temperatures usually hover around freezing, but on New Year’s Day they hit a record 60.6F (15.9C). Temperatures in the Czech Republic matched or broke records going back at least 30 years at 90 of 162 stations in the nation. Residents in Warsaw enjoyed the mildest start to the year since 1999, with a high of 66F. Latvia, Lithuania and the Netherlands also experienced record warmth on New Year’s Day. France recorded the warmest winter night since 1947 just before the new year. In Switzerland, temperatures hit a record 68F north of the Alps on New Year’s Day.
“The record-breaking heat across Europe over the new year was made more likely to happen by human-caused climate change, just as climate change is now making every heat wave more likely and hotter,” said Dr. Friederike Otto, senior lecturer at the Grantham Institute — Climate Change and Environment at Imperial College London. “As long as greenhouse gas emissions continue, heat waves like these will become increasingly common and severe.” It forced some ski resorts in low-lying mountain ranges like the Pyrenees to close trails during its peak season due to a lack of snowfall.
The city of Bilbao in Spain’s Basque country, exceeded 77F prompting its regional government to issue an emergency weather alert on New Year’s Day, citing risk of forest fires. In Munich, Germany, the temperature on New Year’s Eve was above 68F, the highest ever measured on that date.
A fast-moving, warm air mass from the Tropical Atlantic moved toward Western and Central Europe, prompting the unusual heat, said Robert Vautard, a scientist and a coordinating lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, adding that the system also drew heat from the ocean, which is warming from absorbing the heat trapped by GHG that humans pump into the atmosphere. “Everything is warmer, the ocean is warmer and therefore all the air coming from the ocean is warmer.” “It’s completely exceptional at this time of year,” he added. “It’s what we used to call record-shattering extremes.”
Britain has also experienced milder than usual temperatures, with a record 61F in London on New Year’s Day. “The temperatures observed in Europe are staggering,” Scott Duncan, a meteorologist based in London, said. “We observed longstanding records broken by large margins across several countries.”
The world remained firmly in a warming grip in 2022, with extreme summer temperatures in Europe, China and elsewhere making it the fifth-hottest year on record. The eight warmest years on record have now occurred since 2014, as per scientists from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. 2016 remains the hottest year ever.
Overall, the world is now 1.2C (2.1F) hotter than it was in the second half of the 19th century. “We are continuing the long-term warming trend of the planet,” said Zeke Hausfather, a researcher at Berkeley Earth, an independent organization that analyzes environmental data.
2022 was the Arctic’s sixth warmest year on record, and researchers observed signs of how the region is changing. A September heat wave in Greenland caused the most severe melting of the island’s ice sheet for that time of the year in over four decades of continuous satellite monitoring. In August 2021, a heat wave caused it to rain at the ice sheet’s summit for the first time. “Insights about the circumpolar region are relevant to the conversation about our warming planet now more than ever,” said Richard W. Spinrad, administrator of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “We’re seeing the impacts of climate change happen first in polar regions.”
Over the past four decades, the Arctic region has warmed at four to seven times the global average rate according to the Arctic Report Card which NOAA has produced since 2006. Warming at the top of the Earth raises sea levels worldwide, changes the way heat and water circulate in the oceans, and might even influence extreme weather events like heat waves and rainstorms, scientists say.
The report noted that the seven warmest years in the Arctic have been the last seven. Rising temperatures have helped plants, shrubs and grasses grow in parts of the Arctic tundra, and 2022 saw levels of green vegetation that were the fourth highest since 2000. 2022 was the region’s third wettest since 1950. Snow accumulation in the Arctic is declining. In June, snow cover in the North American Arctic was the second lowest on record. In the Eurasian Arctic, it was third lowest.
March is typically when the ice is at its greatest extent each year, September its lowest. At both points in 2022 ice levels were among the lowest since satellites have been making reliable measurements. The Greenland ice sheet has lost ice for the last 25 years. But what stood out to scientists was an extraordinary burst of melting in September as temperatures rose 36F above normal for that time of year. More than a third of the ice sheet experienced melting, according to the report. Later that month, the remnants of Hurricane Fiona traveled over the island and caused further melting over 15% of the ice sheet. The temperature reached 40F in the northern Alaskan community of Utqiagvik, smashing winter records. The Greenland ice sheet is likely to raise global sea levels 3’ to 6.5’ over the next few centuries and if it has passed the tipping point and melts entirely, it could raise global sea levels 26’ over tens of centuries. In addition, sea levels likely will rise about 1.5’ due to thermal expansion (heat) by 2100.
The annual Arctic Report Card was issued in mid-December by nearly 150 experts from 11 nations at a conference of the American Geophysical Union, the society of earth, atmospheric and oceanic scientists. The report noted that the Arctic continues to rapidly change from a frozen region to one now wet and stormy with periods of rain causing dramatic climatic and seasonal shifts and resulting upheavals for local communities, wildlife and ecosystems.
A rapid transformation is under way from sea ice, snow and permafrost to open water, rain and vegetated landscapes. The global significance of these alarming changes is just being realized. Global sea levels are rising, water circulation patterns and heat distribution are changing and may be behind extreme weather events such as detailed above.
Once again, those who contributed the least to the problem of climate change suffer disproportionally. “Our homes, livelihoods and physical safety are threatened by the rapid-melting ice, thawing permafrost, increasing heat, wildfires and other changes,” said Jackie Qatalina Schaeffer, an author of the Report, the director of climate initiatives for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and an Inupiaq from Kotzebue, Alaska.
Sea ice was at near-record-lows in 2021 and only slightly greater in 2022. Less sea ice means less light is reflected and more heat is absorbed by the dark water. Warm water provides energy to passing storms such that Typhoon Merbok struck with greater ferocity more than 1,000 miles of Alaskan coast in September 2022. In December 2022, the temperature reached a record high of 40F in the northern Alaskan community of Utqiagvik.
America’s GHG emissions from energy and industry increased by 6.2% in 2021 and by 1.3% in 2022, continuing to rebound from the pandemic decline in 2020 but not quite reaching prepandemic levels, according to preliminary estimates published by the Rhodium Group, a nonpartisan research firm. Emissions went up even as renewable energy surpassed coal power nationwide for the first time in over six decades, with wind, solar and hydropower generating 22% of the country’s electricity compared with 20% from coal. The Group’s analysis suggests that emissions are declining long term, but not enough for the US to meet Biden’s target of at least 50% reduction in GHG emissions, compared to 2005 levels, by 2030, which is consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5C to avoid a climate catastrophe.
The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, a landmark climate and tax law, is supposed to help move closer to the 2030 goal, but the US made little progress last year in its highest-emitting sectors, transportation and industry, which together account for roughly two-thirds of the country’s total GHG emissions. Industrial emissions rose by 1.5% and transportation emissions rose by 1.3%. Some experts are hopeful that provisions in the IRA can provide funding to help speed decarbonization. The legislation also expanded consumer tax credits for electric vehicles.
The most significant increase in emissions last year came from homes and buildings, which burn fossil fuels like natural gas in furnaces. Those emissions rose 6% and reached pre-pandemic levels. States like NY are requiring the replacement of such furnaces and boilers with electric heat pumps (Local Law 97) and money is available for such transitions. The estimates from the Rhodium Group excludes emissions from agriculture or wildfires. Agriculture accounted for 11.2% of the total GHG emissions in the US in 2020, according to estimates from the US Department of Agriculture.
“We are continuing the long-term warming trend of the planet,” said Zeke Hausfather, a researcher at Berkeley Earth, an independent organization that analyzes environmental data. “If you draw a straight line through temperatures since 1970, 2022 lands almost exactly on where you’d expect temperatures to be.”
Separate research has shown that heat waves in Europe are increasing in frequency and intensity at a faster rate than almost anywhere else, fueled by warming and perhaps shifts in atmospheric and oceanic circulation. Extreme monsoon floods in Pakistan in 2022 ravaged 1/3d of the country and displaced 33 million people. The heat and accompanying dryness also contributed to extensive wildfires in the Western US.
Despite 27 years of global meetings of the heads of governments (Conventions of the Parties, COPs) and statements by world leaders, including the US, that it is imperative that we all reduce GHG emissions, US GHG emissions did not decline in 2022, they grew. Mr. King said, “We are essentially on the same trajectory that we’ve been on since the mid-2000s,” a “long-term structural decline,” but one that’s “not happening fast enough” to meet Biden’s goals. The planet is on course to warm a catastrophic 3C.
The positive impacts of the recently passed IRA, may start to be seen in 2023. The IRA will provide money to decarbonize industrial plants and reduce fossil fuel emissions from heavy industry, including cement and steel production. The IRA also expanded consumer tax credits for EVs and funding for supporting infrastructure which should decrease emissions from the transportation sector.
In mid-December 2022 there was an important breakthrough regarding fusion energy. Unfortunately, any impact it might have on emission reduction goals and carbon-free energy generation over the next decade or two, is likely to be minimal at best. Still, on Dec. 5, 192 lasers at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California managed, for a fraction of a second, to raise the temperature of hydrogen above that in the core of our Sun, merging the nuclei of hydrogen atoms. Scientists measured a net gain of energy versus the immense amount of energy needed to achieve fusion (2.05 megajoules of energy became 3.15 megajoules). It was the first time that the lasers released nuclear energy from fuel in the laboratory.
While Senator Charles Schumer (D – NY) was exuberant in declaring “This astonishing scientific advance puts us on the precipice of a future no longer reliant on fossil fuels but instead powered by new clean fusion energy” he did not provide a timeline. Kimberly Budil, the lab’s director, estimates that a fusion power plant is “probably decades” away. “I think not five decades, which is what we used to say,” but “a few decades of research.”
Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech, tweeted “We already have the technologies we need to decarbonize 80 percent of the electricity sector by 2030.” Given the urgency of reducing emissions, she favors investing in solar and wind energy and not spending billions of dollars pursuing fusion. Expenses for the NIF were $3.5 billion.
Richard Black, a former BBC correspondent, Tweeted that even if generating power from nuclear fusion is technically feasible, it “might prove prohibitively expensive.” By the time the technology is commercially ready, “many countries will already have virtually removed fossil fuels from their power system. And there will be no point, 15 years after that, in replacing clean and extremely cheap renewables with clean and probably expensive fusion.”
On the other hand, solar and wind projects require energy storage, and we are not close to the capacity we need to scale up these energy sources. Nuclear fission, which is used in existing nuclear power plants, is immediately available to help phase out fossil fuels. Neither it nor nuclear fusion release CO2. But unlike fission, fusion does not create long-lived radioactive waste. Since fusion does not threaten runaway reactions or nuclear proliferation, it may prove less expensive than fission, if the technology advances.
Bill McKibben, writing in the New Yorker, also favors leading with what we have now. “Imagine, if everything goes right, a world where, in a quarter-century’s time, we can take down the solar panels and wind turbines we’re now erecting and replace them with elegant fusion reactors.” “If we don’t make that first transition right now, those elegant reactors will be deployed, if at all, on a badly degraded, even broken, planet.”
The crisis involving 7 US states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, California, and Arizona) dependent on water from the Colorado River exemplifies the types of issues that are increasingly confronting nations globally. Climate change is driving numerous changes that are occuring too abruptly for natural ecosystems and man-made systems to adapt. None of the 7 states dependent on the Colorado River is receiving the amount of water they are entitled to under the law since Mother Nature is not observant of any laws but her own and the states have been unable to negotiate reductions acceptable to all. Thus, the federal government (the Interior Department) will have to make historic, and inevitably unpopular, decisions on water distribution affecting 40 million Americans.
Kevin Moran directs state and federal water policy advocacy at the Environmental Defense Fund, said “We’re really at a moment of reckoning.” Climate change is forcing the recognition that profound changes must be made on the foundations of American life including both the physical infrastructure, like dams and reservoirs, as well as the legal framework that support those systems.
“We’re using more water than nature is going to provide,” said Eric Kuhn, general manager for the Colorado River Water Conservation District. “Someone is going to have to cut back very significantly.” The 1922 Colorado River Compact, which apportioned the water among the so-called upper basin states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) were allotted 7.5 million acre-feet a year, and the lower basin (Arizona, California and Nevada) got 8.5 million acre-feet. A later treaty guaranteed Mexico, where the river reaches the sea, 1.5 million acre-feet. (An acre-foot of water covers an acre of land in a foot of water which is roughly as much water as two typical households use in a year.)
But assuming the river’s annual flow would average 17.5 million acre-feet was wrong. Over the past century, the annual flow has averaged less than 15 million acre-feet. From 2000 through 2022, the average was just over 12 million acre-feet. And, while climate change has led to drought and reduced flow, demand for the water increased with more construction and development.
From 1940 to about 2000, the water level in Lake Mead was filled to and maintained at about 1,200’ above sea level. Last summer (2022) it sank to 1,040,’ its lowest ever. If the water level falls below 950’ the Hoover Dam will be unable to generate hydroelectric power. If it falls to 895,’ no water will pass the dam, a condition called “Deadpool,” and all downstream users, human and non-human, would receive no water (CA, AZ, Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico).
In August 2022, the 7 states missed the deadline set by the commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, Camille C. Touton, to produce a plan to reduce their use of Colorado River water by two to four million acre-feet — about 20 to 40% of the river’s entire flow. Historically the states have negotiated water allocation but faced with deeply unpopular options, the states are stymied. Ms. Touton said, “It is in our authorities to act unilaterally to protect the system.” “And we will protect the system.”
Due to the drought, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming are using about half their allotment. “Clearly, the lion’s share of what needs to be done has to be done by the lower basin states,” said Estevan López, the negotiator for New Mexico who led the Bureau of Reclamation during the Obama administration.
Nevada is allotted just 300,000 acre-feet from the Colorado. If its water deliveries were stopped entirely, it would render Las Vegas effectively uninhabitable and do nothing to ease the pressure on the other states and their ecosystems.
The lower basin states include California and Arizona, which have rights to 4.4 million and 2.8 million acre-feet from the Colorado — typically the largest and third-largest allotments among the seven states. California uses the water primarily in the Imperial Irrigation District, which has rights to 3.1 million acre-feet which is as much as Arizona and Nevada combined. Farmers in the Imperial Valley grow alfalfa, lettuce and broccoli on about 800 square miles.
California has senior water rights to Arizona, so legally Arizona’s supply should be cut before California’s according to JB Hamby, vice president of the Imperial Irrigation District and chairman of the Colorado River Board of California, which is negotiating for the state. Tina Shields, Imperial’s water department manager, said it would be hard to tell California farmers who rely on the Colorado River to stop growing crops “so that other folks continue to build subdivisions.” Arizona’s status as a junior rights holder was established in 1968, when Congress agreed to pay for the Central Arizona Project which produced an aqueduct that carries water hundreds of miles from the Colorado to Phoenix and Tucson, and the farms that surround them.
Legally, Arizona has junior rights which has forced cuts to its water supply. Tom Buschatzke, director of the state’s Department of Water Resources, now argues that everyone should make a meaningful contribution, and that nobody should lose everything. “That’s an equitable outcome, even if it doesn’t necessarily strictly follow the law.”
The Interior Department must also consider the federal commitment to deliver about half of the water from the Central Arizona Project to Native American tribes including those in the Gila River Indian Community which is entitled to 311,800 acre-feet per year. Governor Stephen Roe Lewis of the Gila River Indian Community said cutting their supply “would be a rejection of the trust obligation that the federal government has for our water.”
Tommy Beaudreau, deputy secretary of the Interior Department, said the federal government would consider “equity, and public health, and safety” as it weighs how to spread the reductions. The department will compare California’s preference to base cuts on seniority of water rights with Arizona’s suggestion to cut allotments in ways meant to “meet the basic needs of communities in the lower basin.” “We’re in a period of 23 years of sustained drought and overdraws on the system,” he added. “I’m not interested, under those circumstances, in assigning blame.” But cuts are coming because there isn’t enough water and there is no reason to think more may come.
The International Energy Agency and many climatologists have bluntly stated that remaining oil and gas reserves must stay in the ground if we are to avoid catastrophic impacts from climate change. Ecuador tried, and failed, to do just that and now, due to debt pressures, drilling has resumed in its rainforest. The exploration is occuring in Yasuní National Park where some of the last Indigenous people on Earth living in isolation are now encountering workers building new oil platforms carved out of the wilderness.
This is another example of how global financial forces trap developing countries into depleting the most biodiverse places on the planet, turning an essential carbon sink into a carbon source.
In 2007, Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s president at the time, proposed keeping the oil reserves in a parcel (Block 43), estimated at around a billion barrels, in the ground. The proposal included a fund of $3.6 billion, half of the oil’s estimated value, to compensate Ecuador for preserving its reserves. It would have been a win for the climate, for biodiversity, for Indigenous rights, and a precedent-setting moral victory, where a small developing nation would be paid for giving up a resource that helped enrich developed countries like the US and Europe.
The UN agreed to manage the fund. Germany and Italy pledged resources. But the Yasuni proposal only raised about $13 million. “The world has failed us,” Mr. Correa told the nation in August 2013. China stepped in with around $8 billion in loans, some to be repaid in oil.
So began this debt trap that economists say poorer countries are prone to. Because they have less robust economies, they typically borrow at elevated interest rates, since they’re considered riskier. “Obviously we are in monstrous debt,” said Fernando Santos, the Ecuadorean energy minister. While he recognizes that oil played a role in creating the problem, he also believes that this time oil will be the solution. With more drilling and mining development “the country will be able to get out of debt.”
“The thing that you see in Ecuador is that whenever Ecuador has experienced the oil booms, that’s when the debt of Ecuador has skyrocketed,” said Julián P. Díaz, a professor of economics at Loyola University Chicago.
Nor have the oil booms trickled down to communities close to oil developments. More than half the people who live in the Ecuadorean Amazon are poor. Despite three decades of oil production nearby, the community lacks a sanitation system and potable water comes from a nearby river. The 90-member community has a one-room school where all ages are grouped together.
More than a third of Ecuador’s revenue comes from oil and most of its oil is under the Amazon rainforest. The current president, Guillermos Lasso, said, “Now that the global trend is to abandon fossil fuels, the time has come to extract every last drop of benefit from our oil, so that it can serve the poorest while respecting the environment.”
Environmental justice considerations recognize the validity of the arguments made by developing nations that they are justified in using fossil fuels since they are not to blame for climate change. Environmentalists argue in favor of the type of fund attempted in Ecuador to pay for the oil to stay in the ground which preserves the ecosystems essential in helping to stave off global warming and biodiversity collapse. But, the Democratic Republic of Congo, too, is proceeding to auction oil blocks in their rainforest, peatlands and parts of a sanctuary for endangered mountain gorillas.
“Ecuador’s greatest wealth is its biodiversity,” said Carlos Larrea, a professor at Simón Bolivar Andean University in Quito, the capital, who helped to design the failed fund. The destruction of Yasuní, he said, “is suicide.”
“Nature always loses,” said Renato Valencia, a forest ecologist at Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador who has studied this area for decades. Despite industry’s best practices and promises, “When it comes to economic matters, that’s the rule.”
Environmental damage from oil contamination is bad, but the scientists said, worse impacts come from the company’s road. Once an area is opened, it attracts people to the area who cut down trees and grow crops. Local hunters kill more animals to sell, including threatened species. Illegal logging follows too.
Ecuador is considering a “debt for nature” deal whereby banks may agree to renegotiate a sizable portion of the debt owed in exchange for investing in a new marine reserve off the Galápagos Islands. There may also be a ballot measure asking voters whether the government should keep Block 43 crude oil underground.
“We will run all the oil blocks down, run all the ecosystems down, but we won’t solve the problem of Ecuador’s economy,” Mr. Iza, the Indigenous leader, said. “We must think of another type of economy.”
From December 7-19, 2022, delegates from more than 190 countries gathered in Montreal for the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15), focused on a strategy to halt the biodiversity loss by 2030 and reverse it by 2050. This Blog is devoted to climate change, which is a driver of the biodiversity crisis and a separate issue threatening the future of human civilization as we know it. So, I will limit my remarks on the latter. As Christopher Ketcham wrote in his headline in The Intercept, “addressing climate change will not ‘save the planet.’” Not unless the bio-crisis is also addressed.
Similarly, a group of biologists wrote in Conservation Letters, climate change is a “myopic lens” through which to view the biological decline of the planet as warming is far from “the most important horseman of the biodiversity apocalypse,” it’s more of a powerful, slow “mule.” “The current perception that climate change is the principal threat to biodiversity is at best premature,” they wrote. “Although highly relevant, it detracts focus and effort from the primary threats: habitat destruction and overexploitation.”
According to the World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report focusing on some 32,000 species worldwide, vertebrate populations have declined on average by 69% since just 1970, and in Latin America and the Caribbean, the studied populations have declined on average by 94% since 1970, while among freshwater species that live in the world’s rivers and lakes, the decline has been about 83%.
The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, estimates that about a million animal and plant species currently are threatened with extinction, including: about 13% of bird species, 25% of mammals and 31% of sharks and rays. Perhaps 50% of all insects are dying off too, since 1970.
Such rates are 100 if not 1000 times higher than would be expected without human activity. Animals raised by us for our consumption account for 62% of global mammal biomass with just 4% being wild. Humans and our food represent 96% of all mammal life on Earth. Thus, it may not be surprising that only 3% of global ecosystems remain intact, according to a paper published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change.
The first COP on biodiversity was in 1994. After 15 meetings, even the less than ambitious targets set for 2020 were not met. Currently there is momentum behind the ’30 by 30’ push, including Biden’s Executive Order to preserve 30% of US lands, freshwater and ocean areas by 2030. But this may prove wholly inadequate and without drastic changes to how humanity conducts its affairs, saving humanity from itself, and the threats posed by climate change and the loss of species and functioning ecosystems, will be challenging.
In early Nov 2022, a draft of the fifth National Climate Assessment was released for public comment. The Assessment states that “The things Americans value most are at risk” and that the effects of climate change are already “far-reaching and worsening” throughout the US, posing profound risks to virtually every aspect of society. The 1,695-page Assessment is the product of 13 federal agencies and hundreds of scientists. The Assessment is late because the Trump administration tried to halt work on it.
The report states, “More intense extreme events and long-term climate changes make it harder to maintain safe homes and healthy families, reliable public services, a sustainable economy, thriving ecosystems and strong communities.” Due to GHG emissions the US likely will face increasingly large disruptions to farms and fisheries that drive up food prices, and millions of Americans may be displaced by disasters such as those we are already experiencing.
John Podesta, a senior adviser to the President on clean energy, said that “the report underscores that Americans in every region of the country and every sector of the economy face real and sobering climate impacts.”
In coastal cities like Miami Beach, Fla., the frequency of normal high tide flooding has quadrupled over the last 20 years due to sea level rise. In Alaska, climate change has been linked to 14 major fishery disasters, including an increase in marine heat waves. In Colorado, the trend of declining snowfall has hurt the ski industry.
Kate Marvel, a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies said, “The old narrative that climate change is something that’s happening to polar bears or it’s going to happen to your grandchildren — that was never true, but it is now obviously not true.” “There’s bad stuff happening now where we can very confidently say, ‘This wouldn’t have happened without climate change.’”
The US has warmed 68% faster than Earth over the past 50 years, according to the draft report, with average temperatures in the lower 48 states rising 2.5F (1.4C) during that time. This is consistent with the global pattern where land areas are warming faster than oceans, and higher latitudes are warming faster than lower latitudes due to GHG emissions. In the 1980s, $1 billion in damages from extreme weather disaster occurred about once every four months. “Now,” the draft says, “there is one every three weeks on average.”
The report warns that things may get worse if global temperatures keep rising. “When we look to the future, we can’t say with any certainty that, ‘Oh, we’re safe at 2 degrees, we’re safe at 1.5 degrees,’” Dr. Marvel said. “We don’t know exactly how the carbon cycle is going to change. We don’t know exactly how warm it’s going to get.” But what’s clear, she said, is that “the primary determinant of the future” is what humans do in the present.
The report says current efforts are “not sufficient” and emissions must decline at a much faster pace, by more than 6%, to meet Biden’s targets. Even if drastic reductions are made, the US will still endure rising climate risks through at least 2030 because of lags in the climate system. Thus, every state should plan to adapt to the hazards that are here and that will get worse.
The International Energy Agency recently issued a report forecasting that renewable energy will overtake coal as the largest source of electricity generation by early 2025. The pace of change has been driven in large part by the global energy crisis linked to the war in Ukraine. “This is a clear example of how the current energy crisis can be a historic turning point toward a cleaner and more secure energy system,” said Fatih Birol, the IEA executive director.
Renewable energy growth is expected to come from wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear power plants, hydrogen fuels, EVs and electric heat pumps. Heating and cooling buildings with renewable power is a key sector for improvement, the report said. The IRA includes essential long-term tax credits for solar and wind projects extending through 2032, which is expected to pay large dividends in every sense.
China alone is forecast to install almost half of the new global renewable power capacity over the next five years, based on targets set in the country’s new five-year plan. But the country is also accelerating coal mining and production at coal-burning power plants.
The recent momentum in renewable energy growth is not enough to help the world limit global warming to 1.5C (2.7F) compared to preindustrial levels, said Doug Vine, director of energy analysis at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. Scientists have calculated that meeting the 1.5C goal would require countries to curb or offset all CO2 emissions by 2050. “We are still not there,” said Heymi Bahar, a senior analyst at the IEA and one of the lead authors of the report, but the report indicates that narrowing the gap is “within the reach of government policies and actions.” The main obstacles in wealthy countries are lengthy permitting procedures and lack of improvements and expansion to grid infrastructure, the report said.
Washington:
On Feb 1, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management released the final environmental impact statement advancing the controversial Willow oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope. The Interior Department estimates the project will produce 629 million barrels of oil over 30 years and will release around 278 million metric tons of carbon emissions. Climate groups say that’s equivalent to the annual emissions of 76 coal-fired power plants.
“The world and the country can’t afford to develop that oil,” said Jeremy Lieb of Earthjustice, a senior attorney for the environmental law firm. “Willow is just the start based on what industry has planned.” “The total estimate for the amount of oil that could be accessible in the region around Willow is 7 or 8 billion barrels.”
Alaska’s entire Congressional delegation, including newly elected Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, supported the project as a huge boost to state’s economy and domestic energy production.
Environmental groups say it likely will defeat Biden’s climate goals. The project has also been criticized by officials from the nearby Alaska Native village of Nuiqsut. The Interior Department expressed “substantial concerns about the Willow project and the preferred alternative as presented in the final SEIS, including direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions and impacts to wildlife and Alaska Native subsistence.” A final decision may be made 30 days from Feb 1 at which point drilling could begin unless a different alternative is selected.
EPA will receive $90 billion over the next decade due to the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the IRA of 2022 for climate projects including $1.5 billion for new technologies to monitor and reduce methane emissions from oil and gas wells, $5 billion for states to purchase low-emission school buses and $3 billion to cut pollution at ports. But the agency is still depleted from the loss of more than 1,200 scientists and policy experts during the Trump administration and is in danger of missing deadlines for about a half dozen highly complex rules and regulations that are central to Biden’s climate goals. If the new rules are not enacted by mid-2024 they could be overturned by a new Congress or administration. Administrator Michael S. Regan said that new regulations will be made public by spring 2023.
Evergreen, an environmental group, found EPA was behind its own deadlines on nine key environmental regulations and that the agency has not even proposed rules limiting GHG emissions from new gas-fired power plants and existing coal and gas plants which energy analysts say is essential to eliminate fossil fuels from the electricity sector by 2035 as Biden has pledged to do.
Trump tried repeatedly to slash EPA’s budget by at least 30% which led to the exodus of highly skilled scientists and other experts. Trump dismantled science advisory panels, disregarded scientific evidence and weakened protections against pollution. “They beat down the EPA work force, a lot of people left dispirited,” said Senator Tom Carper (D-Del) chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, which oversees EPA.
In November 2022, Biden appeared at the UN climate talks in Egypt where he promised that the US would spend $11.4 billion annually by 2024 to help developing nations transition to clean energy and adapt to a warming planet. He said, “The climate crisis is hitting hardest those countries and communities that have the fewest resources to respond and to recover.” But Republicans called such an effort “radical” and Congress only proposed $1 billion in late December. With Republicans in control of the House, additional climate funds are doubtful for at least the next two years. Nor was any funding included for the Green Climate Fund, a United Nations-led program.
“Congress just bankrolled a defense bill that was $45 billion bigger than the president requested, but we failed to provide a penny to meet our commitments to the Green Climate Fund — a step that would truly help us defend our country and our planet from chaos and instability,” Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass) said.
President Obama promised $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund, but only delivered $1 billion. Trump called the fund a “scheme to redistribute wealth out of the United States” and provided no money for it.
“The U.S. is the world’s largest historical emitter, and on a per-capita basis the U.S. remains one of the biggest carbon polluters,” said Mohamed Adow, the founder and director of Power Shift Africa, a group that aims to mobilize climate action across the continent. He called the US funding levels “hugely disappointing” and said they showed a disregard for the United Nations climate body that established by global consensus ways to help poor nations. “The U.S. has promised much in terms of climate finance over the years but it’s failed to deliver on many of these promises.”
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Carl Howard
Assistant Regional Counsel
US Environmental Protection Agency - Region 2
NY NY
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