Here's what yesterday's AAAS Policy Alert had to say:
Administration Releases Major Report on Climate Change Impacts. On May 29 the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) released the latest version of its periodic scientific assessment, which describes the current and potential impacts of climate change. The law requires a report to be issued at least every 4 years; but, the last report was issued in 2000. The current report was only issued after an order from a federal district court judge.In the Summary and Findings the report notes that "Studies that rigorously quantify the effect of different external influences on observed changes (attribution studies) conclude that most of the recent global warming is very likely due to human-generated increases in greenhouse gas concentrations." The summary admits that tying increases in North American surface temperature directly to human activities is difficult, but concludes that "it is likely that there has been a substantial human contribution to surface temperature increases in North America."
Moreover,
- "All of North America is very likely to warm during this century, and to warm more than the global average increase in most areas."
- "Abnormally hot days and nights and heat waves are very likely to become more frequent, and cold days and cold nights are very likely to become much less frequent over North America."
- "It is likely that droughts will continue to be exacerbated by earlier and possibly lower spring snowmelt runoff in the mountainousWest, which results in less water available in late summer."
- "Future sea-level rise is virtually certain to cause some areas of dry land in the United States to become inundated."
- "The resilience of many ecosystems is likely to be exceeded this century by an unprecedented combination of climate change, associated disturbances (e.g., flooding, drought, wildfire, insects, ocean acidification), and other global change drivers (e.g., land-use change, pollution)."
- "Where earlier snowmelt peaks and reduced low flows in the summer and fall have already been detected, continuing shifts in this direction are very likely and may substantially affect the performance of reservoir systems."
- "Population growth is generally shifting toward areas (e.g., coastal regions) more likely to be vulnerable to the effects of climate change."
- "An increased frequency and severity of heat waves is expected, leading to more illness and death, particularly among the young, elderly, frail, and poor."
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