Friday, December 14, 2012

Climate change reports update U.S. conditions

Two new federal reports update the state of climate change in the United States, including the hotly-controversial subject of sea level rise.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is 90 percent confident that global sea levels will rise by 2100. But NOAA cites a vast range for that rise, from the 8-inch average since 1900 to as much as 6.6 feet -- twice the level a North Carolina science panel says the state should assume for planning purposes.

As the Observer reported in November, some experts say the quickening of sea-level rise documented by satellites since 1992 is too short a period to rely on for future estimates. NOAA also recounts the "hot-spot" of faster rise along the Atlantic coast from Cape Hatteras to Boston that a U.S. Geological Survey researcher and others have documented.

While accelerating sea-level rise is under debate, NOAA says, those reports are "sufficient to suggest" that the northeastern U.S. coast take heed.

The Environmental Protection Agency's Climate Change Indicators update shows temperatures in the contiguous 48 states rising at a rate of 1.3 inches per century since 1901, with a quickening of that rate since the late 1970s. More high-temperature records have been set since the 1980s than cold-temperature records.

EPA also illustrates (above) how the Southeast, to this point, has largely escaped the rising temperatures seen in southern California and the Northeast.  

5 comments:

kantstanzya said...

"Some experts say the quickening of sea level rise documented by satellites since 1992 is too short a time period to rely on for future estimates." Ya think? And so is 100 years. The earth is estimated to be over 4 billion years old. The climate has always changed and always will. The seas have always risen and fallen. All we can do is sit back and observe the extremely minor changes that take place in our extremely minor experience on the planet. Relax.

ColonelFlagg said...

Of course, kanty brings no data or proof that this is a normal, 'minor change'. Even the most prominent deniers have changed their positions in the past few years.

Kanty and the ignoramuses who refuse to believe we are experiencing a critical, man-made event, have NO facts, offer NO proof. Just a strange religious/political argument that defies comprehension.

Alannc44 said...

ColonelFlagg,

Thanks for your voice of reason in so many responses.

For visual evidence of where the sea level was in N.C. just 400 years ago. Go to the google satellite images of The Outer Banks. If you look approximately 3 miles west of Avon, NC you'll see a band of sand. From that sand bar to Avon the water averages 2-3 feet deep. At the sand bar it drops off to 15-20 feet. When the colonists arrived, Native Americans had encampments on the area that is now under 2-3 feet of water. There's a museum operator in Frisco who regularly searches that area for old campsites....and finds them!

Anonymous said...

What happened to Newsweek mags "global cooling" cover story from the 1970s?

jay1937 said...

I know I'm a little late in commenting on this article, however, I wanted to wait for reports from Europe, the UK and other parts of the world before doing so. Now is seems the UK and parts of Europe has had the coldest weather in many, many years. Can or could some of the climate change poopers tell me why? This is all about money, money for the scientist to research something that is normal to the earth, money for 'Green' energy people like the Al Gores of the world, and money for the governments of the world to spend to entrap more and more people into a dependent state of life.
Sorry folks, I do buy the climate change but do not buy the reasons being pushed by the pseudo-intellects of the liberal/socialist/leftist colleges and academia that mostly been pushed into their thinking mode by those of the United Nations, including Obama in their attempt to redistribute the wealth of the working people of the world to the lazy.