Maybe the tide of opinion is turning against climate change sceptics in North America, according to the head of the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Maybe the bout of extreme weather is doing it. The recent wildfires in Colorado have been the most destructive ever on state record and part of the multiple wildfires that are burning across the United States. The hotter and drier condition resulting from climate change has been a factor for the severity of the wildfire, and could be an indicator of future re-occurrence. Read more

Ben Cubby, Environment Editor, Sydney Morning Herald (10 July 2012):

THE tide of opinion is turning against climate change sceptics in North America, according to the head of the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Escalating bouts of extreme weather appear to be behind the shift, said Jane Lubchenco, the chief of the NOAA – the US equivalent of the CSIRO.

”I think there really is a heightened awareness now, because it is something tangible, it’s something people are experiencing themselves – more heatwaves, more wildfires,” Dr Lubchenco told the Herald.

”In the US, I think that the increasing number of extreme weather-related events will help the American public understand that there is a lot at risk and that we do need to be acting more definitively.”

The east coast of the US has just endured a series of some of the most intense heatwaves on record. Altogether, record high temperatures have been recorded at more than 40,000 sites in the US. If global warming wasn’t taking place, the ratio of high and low temperature records would be roughly equal, but in the US this year, heat records have dominated by a ratio of seven to one.

”The heatwaves that we have been seeing in the eastern United States are completely consistent with what we expected to be seeing, and we expect to see more,” she said.

An agreement was signed yesterday between the CSIRO and NOAA to share data and conduct joint research into reefs, oceans and atmospheric warming. At the International Coral Reef Symposium in Cairns, specialist ocean researchers released a statement calling for greenhouse gas cuts.

”The international coral reef science community calls on all governments to ensure the future of coral reefs, through global action to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases,” the statement said.

A Stanford University professor, Steve Palumbi, said scientists had described the severity of the problem and the risks, and politicians had to take responsibility for action. ”To be honest, it’s really difficult,” he said. ”It’s a turning of a corner. It’s scientists giving up control.”

Dr Lubchenco said she did not agree with critics who thought scientists were becoming campaigners for action on climate change. ”At NOAA, all we are doing is providing the data,” she said. ”When some people don’t like the information, they criticise the providers of that information and we certainly see that playing out.”

Source: www.smh.com.au

By Blake Deppe for People’s World (29 June 2012):

Colorado’s Waldo Canyon Fire - which has forced the evacuation of 35,000 people, destroyed 346 homes, and burned for six days at the edge of Colorado Springs – is the most destructive brushfire on record for the state. According to experts, this havoc is just the beginning of what global warming will wreak in the future.

This is what climate change looks like.

Scorching temperatures and winds stoked the flames over the past few days, which has eaten up 18,500 acres of land so far. Firefighters managed to form containment lines around just 15 percent of the wildfire’s perimeter on June 28.

Elsewhere in the state, the High Park Fire remains active, and has very recently had a potentially upsetting ripple effect: it has blackened the nearby Poudre River with ash, possibly killing schools of fish beneath the now-tainted water. The river is filled with dust and debris from the fire as well. The more ash collects in the water, experts believe, the higher the fish mortality will become.

“This is going to happen over time” as the wildfire continues, said Ken Kehmeier, an aquatic biologist with Colorado Parks and Wildlife. “When the river turns black, fish are getting all that particulate matter that could affect oxygen levels. We could see fish struggling due to their gills getting clogged up with ash.”

In the case of the Waldo Canyon Fire, meanwhile, authorities say that arson cannot yet be ruled out as a culprit for the blaze. But the more likely causes for it, note scientists, are several: shorter winters with reduced snowfall, earlier springs, and extreme and early summer heat, all of which occurred this year.

“What we’re seeing is a window into what global warming really looks like,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton University climate scientist. “It looks like heat; it looks like fires; it looks like this kind of environmental disaster. This provides vivid images of what we can expect to see more of in the future.”

The aforementioned weather conditions, he added, were exactly what he and his colleagues at the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had predicted would result from a carbon-induced climate shift.

Dr. Steven Running, a University of Montana forest ecologist, noted that mountain snow generally melted two weeks earlier than average this year in the U.S. “That just sets us up for a longer, drier summer. Then all you need is an ignition source and wind. Now we have a lot of dead trees to burn, and it’s not even July yet.”

But the problem runs deeper than just disasters that have been observed this year alone. Since 1950, the number of heat waves worldwide has greatly increased, according to a report by nonprofit science outreach group Climate Communication. The “remarkable run of record-shattering heat waves in recent years,” said the report, “from the Russian heat wave of 2010 that set forests ablaze to the historic heat wave in Texas in 2011″ all serve as examples of the ongoing climate change issue.

Others understand that right-wing efforts to deny the existence of climate change, to loosen regulations on pollution, and to divert attention away from environmentalism are only going to add to the problem.

Rep. Harry Waxman, D-Calf., remarked, “Extreme events like the wildfires in Colorado are going to get worse unless the Republican-controlled Congress changes course soon.”

Source: www.peoplesworld.org