EPA: Climate Change is Real

Climate change isn’t coming, folks – it’s already here. So says the EPA in an 80-page report, Climate Change Indicators in the United States, announced yesterday.

“Climate change is a very real problem with impacts that are already being seen,” said Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation.

According to the report, things are definitely looking “up” for climate change:

Greenhouse gas emissions: up.
Between 1990 and 2008, the United States has seen about a 14 percent increase in emissions human activities. The rest of the world: increased by 31 percent.

Greenhouse gas concentrations: up.
Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have (pun intended) skyrocketed since the beginning of the industrial era, almost all attributable to human activities. Current levels of many greenhouse gases are higher than any seen in thousands of years, even after accounting for natural fluctuations.

Average temperatures: up.
Seven of the top 10 warmest years on record for the continental United States have occurred since 1990. (2010 is on track to be one of the hottest years yet.) http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100415_marchstats.html

Tropical cyclone intensity: up.
Six of the 10 most active hurricane seasons have occurred since the mid-1990s.

Sea levels: up.
From 1993 to 2008, sea level rose twice as fast as the long-term trend. Miami, we will miss you.

Heat waves: up.
The frequency of heat waves has risen steadily since the 1960s as has the percentage of the U.S. population impacted by them.

Deluges: up.
In recent years, a higher percentage of precipitation in the United States has come in the form of intense single-day events. Eight of the top 10 years for extreme one-day precipitation events have occurred since 1990. The occurrence of abnormally high annual precipitation totals: also up.

But not everything is looking up …

Glaciers: down.
Loss of glacier volume appears to have – surprise, surprise – accelerated over the last decade. The report pairs chilling (me with the puns again) images of once-upon-a-time glaciers with graphs showing dramatic decline in worldwide glacier mass and the mass of three benchmark U.S. glaciers.

So will this be enough to convince the U.S. Senate to move on the paralyzed climate bill? It’s worth an email to your senators. Time is running out.