Here are seven figures that show just how dire the climate situation grew this decade alone.
The past five years were the hottest ever recorded on the planet
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cracks appear in the dried-out bed of a forest lake in Germany on Aug. 6, 2019. The NOAA said July was the hottest month on Earth since records began in 1880.
Globally, the past five years, from 2014 through 2018, all had record-breaking temperatures, with reports from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showing the hottest year ever as 2016, followed by 2017, 2015, 2018 and 2014.
These recent peak temperatures followed decades of warming around the globe. Higher temperatures are linked to a range of dangerous natural disasters ― including extreme floods, hurricanes and deadly wildfires ― and deaths. Since 2016 alone, at least 50% of coral reefs in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef ― the largest coral reef in the world ― have died amid the rising heat. Humans aren’t far behind: A study published in January found that more than a quarter-million people may die each year as a result of climate change in the decades to come.
While reports for 2019 won’t be released until early next year, this year has already experienced several record-breaking months. This June, July and September were the hottest June, July and September ever recorded on Earth.
Four of the five largest wildfires in California history happened this decade
Handout/Reuters
An aerial photo of the devastation left behind from wildfires in Northern California, Oct. 9, 2017.
Wildfires worsened in California in recent years, with hotter temperatures and dry conditions often combining with high winds to create a longer fire season with more destructive blazes. Scientists linked the worsening fires across the Western U.S. to climate change.
Among the five largest wildfires in the fire-prone state, four happened this decade alone. The largest ever in the state, the Mendocino complex fire of July 2018, blazed through nearly half a million acres.
What’s more, seven of the 10 most destructive fires in California occurred since 2015; and the deadliest ever fire in state history took place in 2018: the Camp fire, which killed 85 people and burned down nearly the entire town of Paradise.
And Category 5 hurricanes are not the only ones that wreak havoc on communities. Hurricane Harvey, which landed in 2017 as a Category 4, broke the continental U.S. rainfall record, dumping more than 50 inches of rain in parts of Texas and killing more than 80 people. Scientists said climate change made the storm worse, with rain associated with the lethal storm at least 15% stronger due to global warming.
The previous decade of the 2000s also saw a high number of Category 5 storms, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005. However, this decade had the most consecutive years of Category 5 hurricanes, with the catastrophic-sized storms hitting each of the past four years.
Arctic sea ice cover dropped about 13% this decade
ASSOCIATED PRESS
This combination of Sept. 14, 1986, left, and Aug. 1, 2019, photos provided by NASA shows the shrinking of the Okjokull glacier on the Ok volcano in Iceland.
Ice sheets are melting and glaciers are shrinking in “unprecedented” ways, according to a 2019 report from the U.N. A widespread shrinking of the cryosphere ― or the frozen parts of the planet ― has left large stretches of land uncovered by ice for the first time in millennia. And sea level rise is accelerating dramatically as all that ice melts.
Researchers with the IPCC warned that coastal communities were the most vulnerable to many “climate-related hazards, including tropical cyclones, extreme sea levels and flooding, marine heatwaves, sea ice loss and permafrost thaw.” Around 680 million people currently live in areas that would be impacted by such hazards, which the U.N. noted often have the least capacity to deal with climate change.
Floods with a 0.1% chance of happening in any given year became a frequent occurrence
Spencer Platt via Getty Images
A truck drives through high water on a street as Orange, Texas, slowly moves toward recovery almost a week after the devastation of Hurricane Harvey on Sept. 6, 2017.
With more heat in the atmosphere came more rainfall, and with more rainfall came more floods. But these weren’t just any floods; they were torrents so enormous that they were classified as having only a 1-in-1,000 chance of happening in any given year ― forcing the scientific community to reconsider what they call these increasingly frequent events.
Flooding associated with Hurricane Harvey was one of those “1,000 year” events, meaning there was only a 0.1% chance of such a deluge striking in 2017 based on the century of flood data researchers have to work off of.
The likelihood of such flooding was hard for people to grasp given how many other “1,000 year” floods had already occurred in recent years. Back in September 2016, when five of those floods had already hit the U.S. that year, experts pondered whether rapidly rising global temperatures had rendered the current flood-prediction model useless.
“We may, in other words, already have shifted so far into a new climate regime that probabilities have been turned on their head,” Scott Weaver, a senior climate scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, wrote at the time.
Studies at the start of the decade more or less predicted the phenomenon. In 2012, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University found that by around the year 2100, what we called “100 year” floods ― ones that have a 1% chance of occurring in any given year ― would need to be reclassified as 1-in-20-year or even 1-in-3-year events.
There were more than 100 “billion dollar” climate disasters, double from the decade before
ASSOCIATED PRESS
This Oct. 31, 2012, aerial photo shows destruction in the wake of Superstorm Sandy in New Jersey.
A HuffPost analysis of federal data on the costliest droughts, floods, storms, cyclones and fires in the U.S. this decade offered a grim look at how expensive it became for the country to continue with business as usual.
In the last 10 years, the U.S. experienced at least 115 climate and weather disasters with losses exceeding $1 billion each, according to data from the NOAA that runs through Oct. 8 of this year.
That’s nearly double the number of such events that took place in the U.S. during the previous decade, when the NOAA tallied 59 events that caused at least $1 billion in damage. There were 52 such events in the 1990s and 28 in the 1980s. That’s as far back as the NOAA’s data ― which is adjusted for inflation ― goes.
Of the five most expensive billion-dollar events in the NOAA’s records, four took place this decade. The most expensive disaster of the 2010s was Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which caused an estimated $130 billion in damages. It’s followed by Hurricane Maria at $93 billion, Hurricane Sandy at $73 billion and Hurricane Irma at $52 billion.
The devastating California wildfires in 2017 and 2018 were also the two most expensive disasters of their kind from the last four decades. The 2018 fires ― which include the one that burned Paradise, California, to the ground ― totaled $24 billion in damage, while the 2017 fires that scorched the state’s wine country caused $19 billion worth of destruction.
Meanwhile, we pumped a record 40.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air in 2019
ASSOCIATED PRESS
In this Nov. 28, 2019, photo, smoke and steam rise from a coal processing plant in central China’s Shanxi Province.
Carbon emissions reached a record high in 2018 and then again this year ― when scientists estimated that countries worldwide spewed more than 40.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air. The rise was spurred in part by increased output in China and India, per a study from researchers for the annual Global Carbon Budget.
This bleak news came amid a series of reports released this year urging a dramatic cutback of carbon emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
We’re ending this decade on track to warm a catastrophic 3.2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Climate activists participate in a student-led climate change march in Los Angeles on Nov. 1, 2019.
Like pretty much every other climate report from this decade, an emissions assessment the U.N. released at the end of 2019 came with a dire warning. According to a study of the so-called emissions gap ― a marker of the difference between the amount of planet-heating gases countries have agreed to cut and where the current projections are headed ― global temperatures are on pace to rise as much as 3.2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels by the end of the century. That’s more than double what scientists project is enough warming to cause irreversible damage to the planet.
To change that fate, the next 10 years will be crucial. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned last fall that humanity has just under a decade to get climate change under control. But as grim as the report is, it reaffirms that making such sweeping changes ― however unprecedented such a drastic adjustment may be ― is still possible.
Posted in
Climate Change|
Comments Off on Climate Change This Past Decade in the USA
“Climate change has been linked to changes in Atlantic hurricane behavior, making storms more destructive to the built environment and vital infrastructure, more harmful to the physical and mental health of island-based and coastal populations, and more deadly in their aftermath.1 These escalating effects on population health represent a double environmental injustice: socioeconomically disadvantaged and marginalized populations sustain disproportionate harm and loss, with more hazardous storms exacerbating the inequity; and while the populations most vulnerable to Atlantic hurricanes, especially those in small-island states, contribute virtually nothing to climate change,2 they are among those most exposed to risks that are worsened by the carbon emissions from higher-income countries.2
Anthropogenic climate change amplifies storm hazards through such intermediaries as anomalously warm ocean and air temperatures, rising ocean heat content, and increasing atmospheric moisture capacity, compounded by a rise in sea levels. Atlantic hurricanes have become stronger, wetter, and slower-moving over the past few decades, with likely contributions from human actions….”
Posted in
Climate Change|
Comments Off on “Climate change has been linked to changes in Atlantic hurricane behavior, making storms more destructive to the built environment and vital infrastructure, more harmful to the physical and mental health of island-based and coastal populations, and more deadly in their aftermath…”
Climate change is increasing the size, frequency, intensity and seasonality of wildfires. Climate scientists have already identified the telltale climate fingerprints on some of the biggest blazes of the past decade:
• Climate change has already increased the frequency of fire weather — hot, dry, and windy — in much of the U.S. (Abatzoglou, Williams, and Barbero 2018).
• Climate change has doubled the area burned in the Western United States (Abatzoglou and Williams 2016).
• The fire season has increased by more than two months in the Western United States, largely due to climate change (Westerling et al. 2006).
All fire needs to burn is an ignition source and plenty of fuel. While climate change might not ignite the fire, it is giving fires the chance to turn into catastrophic blazes by creating warmer temperatures, increasing the amount of fuel (dried vegetation) available, and reducing water availability by earlier snowmelt and higher evaporation. These infernos have dire consequences – from respiratory illness to loss of life and property, many communities are not equipped to deal with this new era of mega fires.
Climate-fuelled disasters were the number one driver of internal displacement over the last decade – forcing an estimated 20 million people a year from their homes. While no one is immune, it is overwhelmingly poor countries that are most at risk. Eighty percent of those displaced in the last decade live in Asia, home to over a third of the world’s poorest people.
Small island developing states make up seven of the 10 countries that face the highest risk of internal displacement as a result of extreme weather events. These communities are 150 times more likely to be displaced by extreme weather disasters than communities in Europe. Countries from Somalia to Guatemala are seeing large numbers of people displaced by both conflict and the climate crisis.
Despite this, the international community has made little progress towards the provision of new funds to help poor countries recover from loss and damage resulting from the climate emergency. As the 2019 UN Climate Summit opens, Oxfam is calling for more urgent and ambitious emissions reductions to minimize the impact of the crisis on people’s lives, and the establishment of a new ‘Loss and Damage’ finance facility to help communities recover and rebuild.
Posted in
Climate Change|
Comments Off on Climate-related disasters have been the number 1 reason for internal displacement in the past decade
The number of climate-related disasters has tripled in 30 years. By the 2030s, large parts of Southern, Eastern and the Horn of Africa and South and East Asia will experience greater exposure to droughts, floods and tropical storms.
20 M
On average, over 20 million people a year were internally displaced by extreme weather disasters over the last 10 years. Eighty percent of those displaced live in Asia – home to over a third of the world’s poorest people.
10 %
The richest 10 percent of people in the world produce around half of global emissions. The poorest half of the world’s population – 3.5 billion people – is responsible for just 10 percent of carbon emissions.
100
Just 100 companies are responsible for close to three quarters of global emissions (71 percent) and spend millions lobbying against climate action.
700 $
Between 2008 and 2018, 18 African countries have collectively suffered an annual loss of over 700$ million from climate-related disasters.
Posted in
Climate Change, Environment|
Comments Off on Climate-related disasters: Looking at the numbers
Posted in
Climate Change|
Comments Off on UN: The newly launched Emissions Gap Report tracks the gap between where greenhouse gas emissions are heading and where they need to be.
“…….Starting next school year, schools will be required to dedicate 33 hours per year — almost one hour per school week — to discussing the challenges of climate change,…..”
Posted in
Climate Change, Education|
Comments Off on Learning about climate change and sustainability will soon be compulsory for all students across Italy
“…….The report, titled Implications of Climate Change for the U.S. Army, was launched by the U.S. Army War College in partnership with NASA in May at the Wilson Center in Washington DC. The report was commissioned by Gen. Milley during his previous role as the Army’s Chief of Staff……..
The two most prominent scenarios in the report focus on the risk of a collapse of the power grid within “the next 20 years,” and the danger of disease epidemics. Both could be triggered by climate change in the near-term………
The report also warns that the US military should prepare for new foreign interventions in Syria-style conflicts, triggered due to climate-related impacts. Bangladesh in particular is highlighted as the most vulnerable country to climate collapse in the world…..
“The permanent displacement of a large portion of the population of Bangladesh would be a regional catastrophe with the potential to increase global instability,” the report warns. “This is a potential result of climate change complications in just one country. Globally, over 600 million people live at sea level.”
Sea level rise, which could go higher than 2 meters by 2100 according to one recent study, “will displace tens (if not hundreds) of millions of people, creating massive, enduring instability,” the report adds……..“
Posted in
Climate Change, Documents, Pandemic|
Comments Off on “According to a new U.S. Army report, Americans could face a horrifically grim future from climate change involving blackouts, disease, thirst, starvation and war. The study found that the US military itself might also collapse. This could all happen over the next two decades…..”
“…….Many residents in Northern California faced a twin threat on Thursday: fires, but also the deliberate power outages meant to mitigate the blazes. Both the Kincade fire and a small fire that ignited Thursday morning, the Spring fire, occurred in or near areas where the state utility, Pacific Gas and Electric, had turned off the power.
The fires “brought out some longer standing institutional issues around equity,” Mr. Gossman said. Critics say electricity cutoffs disproportionately harm low-income people who cannot afford solar and battery backup systems or gas-based generators, as well as sick and disabled people who rely on electricity to run life-saving medical equipment……”
Posted in
Climate Change|
Comments Off on “…..Climate change will lead to more wildfires nationwide as hotter temperatures dry out plants, making them easier to ignite. ….”
June, 1984
July, 2019