CLIMATE CHANGES: Human activities from farming to housing developments change the climate and are in turn affected by it, according to a new report released by the White House
U.S. Global Change Research Program

The Obama Administration on Tuesday released a report showing climate disruption is already leaving deep imprints on every sector of the environment and that the consequences of these changes will grow steadily worse in coming decades.

The 196-page report crisscrosses the United States and finds that global warming has touched every corner: Heavier downpours, strengthened heat waves, altered river flows and extended growing seasons.

These changes, the report notes, will place increasing stress on water, health, energy and transportation systems and have, in several instances, already crossed tipping points to irreversible change.

"This report is a game-changer," said Administrator Jane Lubchenco of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Much of the foot-dragging in addressing climate change is in the perception that climate change is a ways down the road and only occurring in remote parts of the planet.

"Climate change is happening now. It's happening in our own backyards, and ... it affects you and the things you care about."

The report, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, is issued every decade by the federal government's Climate Change Science Program. It is an attempt to consolidate and transcribe into accessible language the latest climate science across a broad spectrum of disciplines and regions.

The latest version, more than a year in the making, reiterates findings that global warming is unequivocal and primarily caused by humans from the burning of fossil fuels, the clearing of forests, and the disruption of agricultural activities.

Its focus on such a broad swathe of everyday life and its release at a White House press conference by President Obama's top science and climate advisors was seen by many on Tuesday as an attempt to rally the U.S. public to action.

"It's not a document for scientists. It's not even a document for policymakers," said Katharine Hayhoe, a geosciences professor at Texas Tech University and one of 28 report co-authors.
"It's a document for every individual citizen who wants to know why they should care about climate change."

The report notes that reducing carbon dioxide emissions could lessen warming this century and beyond. But it makes equally clear that climate-related changes are already being observed globally and that new problems and challenges will develop no matter how radically emissions are reduced in the future.

For instance, since 1900 global average temperatures have risen 1.5ºF and are expected to rise another 2ºF given emissions already in the atmosphere but not yet reflected in slow-moving climate systems.

Yet temperatures are rising faster over land than over the ocean and more during the winter than any other season. The result, according to scientists, is that winter temperatures across the Great Plains and Midwest are now some 7º warmer than historical norms.
And that means a reduction in Great Lakes ice cover, which leads to more evaporation, lower water levels, and consequent impacts on shipping, infrastructure, beaches and ecosystems.

Meanwhile the Caribbean and Southeast will see increases in wind, rain and storm surges. California and the Southwest will see drier summers. All will see impacts to human health, water supply, agriculture and other aspects of society, the report's authors concluded.

In Chicago, for instance, annual heat-related deaths per six million people could rise from less than 200 that the city saw in the mid-1970s to almost 700 one generation from now.