White House Event on the National Climate Assessment Release - VoiceTube: Learn English through videos!

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Dr. John P. Holdren: Well, good afternoon everybody.
I'm John Holdren, President Obama's science
advisor and the Director of the White House Office
of Science and Technology Policy.
It's my honor to be able to welcome you all to the
White House and to launch this extraordinary event.
We're here, of course, to talk about the release
of the Third National Assessment
of Climate Change Impacts on the United States.
It exists.
This is the 20-page overview.
This is the 140-page highlights.
The 840-page whole document
is live on www.globalchange.gov and folks are invited
to go there but not while today's
speakers are talking.
The assessment that we're launching today
is distinguished by laying out with unprecedented
comprehensiveness, disaggregation detail
and clarity how the climate is changing across
the United States, disaggregated by eight geographic regions,
and also by various crucial
sectors of the economy.
Agriculture, fisheries, the oceans,
energy, and so on.
It basically is letting Americans know how climate
is changing where they work and live,
what impacts that is having on things they value,
and how this picture is expected to evolve going
forward and of course a very substantial emphasis
on what can be done about it.
We're providing what John Podesta
this morning earlier called "actionable science."
This is the theme.
The President has also emphasized information
that people can use to take appropriate action
to reduce their vulnerability to climate change and
to participate in the actions that reduce the emissions
that are driving climate change around the world.
I think that the findings of this extraordinary
report, about which we'll be saying
considerably more, are really the loudest alarm bell
to date signaling the need for urgent action
so that we can combat the threats and the risk
we face from global climate change in this country.
As I think you all know, President Obama
has long recognized the urgency of this challenge
and last June in a speech at Georgetown University
on a sweltering hot day, appropriately enough,
the President launched his Climate Action Plan.
Three-part plan cutting carbon pollution
in America, preparing our communities for changes
in climate that already are on-going, and leading
international efforts to address the challenge.
Now, almost a year later, a lot has happened
in executing on the commitments made
in the Climate Action Plan.
The President has directed the Environmental
Protection Agency and the Department
of Transportation to develop fuel economy
standards for heavy-duty vehicles.
Department of Interior has
announced its permitting of the 50th Renewable Energy Related
Project on federal lands during this administration.
The Department of Energy has issued
multiple new energy efficiency standards.
Department of Agriculture has announced
seven new climate hubs to help farmers and ranchers
adapt their operations to a changing climate.
The administration launched
in this room and not very long ago a Climate Data Initiative
bringing together extensive government
open data and design competitions
with strong commitments from the private and philanthropic
sectors in order to develop data-driven
planning and resilience tools for communities
and I should say that Climate Data Initiative
and the results of this extraordinary
study we're launching today are coming together.
All of the information that the study has
developed will be available
on the web again in user-friendly,
accessible forms to provide people with the
information they will need to reduce their vulnerability.
Of course, as you all know,
the President has instructed the Environmental Protection
Agency to develop standards both
for new power plants, which have already been
put out there, and soon there will be standards proposed
for discussion on existing power plants
and their emissions of heat-trapping gases.
So this is a lot of progress.
We also announced just a couple of months
ago a new strategy to reduce methane emissions
that involve characterizing and quantifying
the sources of methane emissions, committing to new
steps to cut the emissions of that
potent greenhouse gas, and outlining a set
of actions going forward to improve the measurements
so we can tell exactly how well we're doing.
That, I would say, is what progress is supposed
to look like and today's events around
this extraordinary assessment are another big step.
As I think probably everybody in the room
knows, a critical piece
of the President's Climate Action Plan is ensuring that
we continue our steady pace to strengthen
the science that informs and underpins the actions that
we take to address the threats from climate change and ensuring
that as we do that, we pursue the insights
and the information that are most immediately relevant and
useful to the people who need that information.
We're talking about the folks who, in some sense,
are on the front lines of climate change.
The coastal property owners, the farmers,
the fishermen, the city planners,
the water resource managers, and others whose livelihoods,
whose day-to-day decisions, and whose
longer-term planning needs to be informed
by the best data available.
Knowledge about what is happening today
in climate change, what's likely to come down the road,
and what can be done to reduce vulnerability.
And this assessment that we're releasing today,
as you might imagine from its extraordinary length --
839-pages, I think, on the web --
is a virtual encyclopedia of that essential information.
The report was four-plus years in the making.
It was produced under the auspices
of the U.S. Global Change Research Program.
13 federal agencies and departments
involved in that.
Leadership came from NOAA and OSTP.
The heavy lifting
by a 60-person federal advisory committee.
Writing team included some 300 individuals.
I wouldn't even care to count the number
of reviewers in probably one of the most extensive
and transparent multi-stage review processes
in the history of government reports.
And that effort, that extraordinary effort
which included experts from government at all levels,
from academia, from business, from non-profits
has really produced this exceptionally detailed
disaggregated accounting of what climate change
is already doing in every geographic region
of the United States and the most effective
sectors of our economy.
The single most important bottom line that shines
through all these hundreds of pages
is that climate change is not a distant threat.
It is something that is happening now, it is
affecting the American people
now in important ways.
Summers, on the whole, are longer
and hotter with longer periods of extreme heat.
Wildfires in the west start earlier
in the spring and continue later in the fall.
Rain in many parts of the country is coming
down in deluges and heavier downpours.
People are experiencing changes
in the length and severity of seasonal allergies and climate
disruptions to agriculture and water resources
have been growing.
And, of course, again, key insight of this report:
it's not the same everywhere.
Climate change is not uniform.
It is having different impacts in different
parts of the country and that's why it's so important
that this study based on advancing science over
the past five years since the last one came
out has been able to disaggregate these
on-going and expected impacts regionally.
When President Obama launched his Climate
Action Plan, he made clear that the information
in this new climate assessment would
be used and it will be used to inform the efforts
at the federal, state, and local levels
to increase preparedness for and resilience against
the impacts of changes in climate that
can no longer be avoided.
And I think it's very important to say that
this report is not just a bad news story about
all the impacts that are happening.
It's a good news story about
the many opportunities to take cost-effective
actions to reduce the damages.
I want to acknowledge a number of folks,
including the stakeholders in this room, who have gathered
to hear about this and who will be crucial actors
going out and promoting, propagating,
and implementing the findings of this report.
We are grateful for all of your engagement,
but I do want to thank four key individuals without whom
this report would never have come to fruition.
Kathy Sullivan the Administrator of NOAA
and Under Secretary of Commerce whom you'll hear
from later in the program for NOAA's
key partnership in bringing this assessment to fruition,
and I should mention as well her predecessor
Jane Lubchenco who regrets that she couldn't
be here but I spoke with her last evening and she handed
the reins over to Kathy Sullivan from
Jane's earlier involvement from NOAA in this extraordinary
effort and again, without NOA's partnership support,
needless to say also money,
this study would not have been completed.
Jerry Mellilo the Chair of the National
Climate Assessment Development Advisory Committee
affectionately called the NCADAC fac.
Jerry's leadership in this endeavor ensured rigor,
scientific integrity at every step of the way.
You'll hear from Jerry in a moment as well.
Cassie Jacobs who was the first executive director
of the assessment whose vision and dedication
really made this the most transparent national
climate assessment ever and who kept
the trains running on time for more than two years.
Cassie was a great contributor and then
Cassie's successor Fabian Loree
who seamlessly picked
up the ball and saw this report over the finish line
with dedication, focus, and competence.
I think to these folks and to the entire National
Climate Assessment team, the whole NCADAC fac,
the 300 authors, the even more numerous reviewers.
I think we owe them a big vote of thanks
and I want to lead that.
(applause)
Dr. John P. Holdren: And to the rest
of you who are here today
are partners at organizations
and institutions standing ready to disseminate
and communicate the findings of this report
and its message that we need to take action and
we can take action, I ask each of you here to absorb
the energy and enthusiasm that we're generating today,
carry it back, share it with
your constituencies, share it with your communities.
This is, in a sense, a new beginning of this effort
to reach out all across the country
and incentivize and organize the kinds
of actions we need.
Tell folks to visit globalchange.gov
to get informed about what climate is doing
in the regions where they live and work.
Ask them to share that information further
and invite them to share stories
about what they're doing, what their communities
are doing by using the hashtag #ActOnClimate.
Now, I will wrap up, strap on my Master of Ceremonies
hat, and proceed to the introduction
of the next speaker who is none other than Dr. Jerry Mellilo.
Jerry, I'm surprised to say given
the enormous amount of work he had to put in to help bring
this study over the finish line,
actually has a day job.
He is a distinguished scientist
and Director Emeritus of the Ecosystem Center of the
Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole.
And he also just about a week ago received
the distinction of being elected
to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
So, Jerry, please accept my thanks
and my congratulations and please accept the podium.
(applause)
Dr. Jerry M. Mellilo: I do set up for events
as well, so I --
(laughter)
Dr. Jerry M. Mellilo: Well, first let me thank
you all for being here.
This is a long-awaited day for many of the NCADAC
members, authors, and all of our partners.
It's been a team effort and we really appreciate
all that you've done over --
I think it's been almost four years, not just two.
So thank you very much.
So, let me begin by repeating the headline
that John issued for the report.
Climate change, once thought of as a problem
for the future, has moved firmly into the present.
The take-home message is it's happening now
and we need to pay attention.
It is affecting us in our pocketbooks and
on our land in every region of the United States.
It is changing the lives of farmers, mayors,
engineers, town planners, truckers, and foresters.
This National Climate Assessment
looks exclusively at the United States, breaking it down
as John mentioned, into eight distinct regions.
In contrast to IPCC's global assessments
that look at North America as a single region.
The National Climate Assessment
digs deeper than global and national averages
to reveal specific regional impacts that matter
to people every day.
This report is about what is happening
to people in this country.
With five more years of observed data since
the last assessment and, by the way,
a few of us -- Tom Carl, Tony Genados, and I, Rosina --
have been with this assessment process
since the beginning.
So, we've tracked its progress.
This new report reveals specific climate-related
changes and cumulative impacts already occurring
in every region and in economic sectors such
as health, agriculture, energy,
water, and transportation.
The report also reveals linkages among
the impacts across sectors and this is something
new in this report.
For example, reduced water availability
in an already arid region can increase competition
for water resources among uses such as irrigation,
electricity production, and the needs
of the ecosystems that sustain us.
And this effort of beginning to think about
connections across sectors is something that
we hope will continue because it's absolutely
a critical area for study.
This assessment is a result of a remarkably
inclusive national process,
as John mentioned.
A lot of that thanks to Kathy.
Author teams were made up of top experts
from around the country and elsewhere.
We had one Australian member on our team,
as a matter of fact.
Thousands of people were involved,
participating in listening sessions, providing technical
inputs, and producing and reviewing the report,
including reviews by the National Academy of Sciences
and other scholars, federal agencies,
and the public.
The multi-year process, as John mentioned,
was guided by an independent federal advisory committee
that included experts from universities, federal,
state, and local government agencies,
and industry including Monsanto, Chevron,
ConocoPhillips, and Zurich Insurance.
This committee reached unanimous agreement
on the report's contents
after very serious consideration.
All Americans will find things that matter
to them in this report from impacts in their own
regions to those elsewhere that affect the air
we breathe and our food, water,
and energy supplies.
We are all bearing the costs of the increases
in extreme heat, heavy downpours,
and higher coastal storm surges.
For decades, we've been collecting the dots.
Now we have connected those dots.
The picture is clear and it is stark.
Climate change is bringing serious challenges
to our way of life, but that's only the beginning
of the story.
As John mentioned, there are opportunities
and there's a lot that can be done about it.
Across the country, Americans
are already taking action.
The good news is that many of the actions taken
to reduce climate change and its impacts have
a variety of additional benefits for our health
and for our economy.
It is not too late to change our emissions path
and reduce future climate change and its impacts.
The choices we make or don't make today
will shape our future climate and the sustainability
of our way of life.
Now, I want to spend several minutes
highlighting a few examples of what's new
in the 2014 National Climate Assessment.
This is a question we've been asked a lot
by our friends in the press.
The latest scientific analyses using satellite
data since the early 1990s show that sea level rise
has accelerated in recent decades in some areas
of the globe, including our Atlantic Coast
north of Cape Hadarus.
With so many of our cities located on low-lying coast
lines, this matter is of tremendous importance.
For example, in 2012, the one-foot sea level
rise that New York City had already experienced meant
that the flood waters from Sandy surged further
inland and did more damage than
they otherwise would have.
Coastal flooding is also affecting many other
East Coast cities on a regular basis.
Occasional flooding has become frequent in
some of these cities and in others frequent
flooding has become chronic.
Responses to chronic flooding can be expensive.
For example, Miami Beach is planning
to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to reengineer
storm drains in parts of the city to carry away
sea water that backs up in the drains
and floods the streets of that city.
The links between climate change
and sea level rise are clear.
As heat-trapping gases continue to build
up in our atmosphere, the oceans are absorbing
more than 90 percent of the extra heat trapped
in the climate system.
This causes ocean waters to expand and,
in addition, mountain glaciers
are rapidly retreating which adds water to the oceans.
The sleeping giant, however,
in the sea level rise equation has been ice and the major
ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica.
The latest science, again using satellite data,
shows us that the giant is no longer asleep.
Both of these ice sheets are now losing mass.
How quickly they melt over the coming decades
will determine whether we have an additional
one foot of sea level rise or up to four feet
and perhaps even more.
Another major change in our climate brought
about by human-induced warming is the increase
in heavy downpours.
This is clearly an area in which recent observations
have been born out our previous projections.
Our scientific understanding told us that
a warmer atmosphere would hold more moisture
and we measured that and, indeed, it is happening.
We also predicted that the increase in atmospheric
water vapor would mean that more of the rain
would come down in heavy events
and now we've seen that happen.
Some regions, like the Northeast and the Midwest
have seen very large increases in the amounts
of rain falling in the heaviest events.
In the future, even areas that are projected to see
decreases in total amounts of annual rainfall
are expected to see significant increases
in the proportion of that rain coming
in very heavy events.
Okay.
Another thing we've seen is that the areas that
have had big increases in precipitation have
also had increases in flooding.
River flood magnitudes over the last 90 years
have decreased in the Southwest and increased
in the Great Plains, parts of the Midwest, and from the
northern Appalachians into New England we are also
seeing increased flooding.
The map on this screen shows increasing trends
in floods and green and decreasing
trends of floods in brown.
The magnitude of the floods is related
to the size of the triangles.
Of course, global warming also means that our nation
has gotten hotter on average with some areas
seeing bigger changes than others.
But it's not the average that we notice
so much but rather the extremes.
In recent decades, we had fewer really cold days
and more really hot ones and that
has had many important impacts.
One of these impacts has been on the amount
of energy we use for heating and cooling.
First, the good news -- we've needed
less energy for heating.
But now for the bad news.
We've needed a lot more energy for cooling.
Heating energy comes from natural gas, heating oil,
wood, electricity, and other sources.
But cooling is all electricity.
That means some of the big new peaks in demand
for electricity for air conditioning
in the future are going to present serious
challenges for our electric utilities.
The new information in the assessment advances
our understanding of the challenges
that climate change presents for the American people.
The assessment provides Americans with a firm
scientific foundation upon which to build wise
responses for themselves, their communities,
and the nation.
Thank you.
(applause)
Dr. Jerry M. Mellilo: Okay, we are now going
to begin our first panel.
John was going to introduce Dr. Gary Yohe
who is the moderator of the panel
from Wesleyan University.
He has been called away sooner than he thought,
so I'd like to ask Gary and the panel
to join us up here on the podium and we will begin with
a short set of statements by each of the panelists
and then we will take some questions
from our stakeholders.
So, Gary, I'm going to turn this over to you.
Dr. Gary Yohe: Thank you, Jerry.
Thank you all for coming.
Our first panel talks to specific findings
in the Third National Climate Assessment
and I think what you will take away from this
is that this panel confirms the specific conclusion
of the NCADAC and the Third National Climate
Assessment that, indeed, every American will
find things that matter to him or her in this report.
With that, I will ask each of the panelists
to introduce him or herself
and you have three minutes.
Dr. Don Wuebbles: Thank you, Gary.
I'm Don Wuebbles.
I'm a professor at the University of Illinois.
I was involved in the assessment in a number
of different ways, including heading the chapter,
collating the chapter on the climate science
called "In Our Changing Climate."
What I'm going to do is talk a little
bit about that evidence for the climate that's changing,
that the climate is changing,
and why we see human activities as being the primary
cause of that change.
First of all, there are many indicators
that the climate is changing.
Each of the last three decades has been
successfully warmer as the Earth's surface
in any preceding decade since 1850.
Overall, the world has seen an increase
of about one and a half degrees Fahrenheit
increase since the late 1800s.
The U.S. has seen a similar
temperature
increase over this period.
Most of this increase has occurred since 1970.
The most recent decade was the hottest on record
both nationally and worldwide and 2012 was the hottest year
on record in the continental United States.
All U.S. regions have
experienced warming in recent decades
but the extent of warming has not been uniform.
In general, temperatures are rising
more quickly in the north.
Meanwhile, average annual precipitation
over the U.S.
has also increased, although there
are important regional differences.
Trends in some types of extreme weather
have also increased.
Prolonged periods of high temperatures have
increased in many locations.
Heavy downpours are increasing nationally
over the last three to five decades,
especially the Northeast, Midwest, and Great Plains,
as Jerry showed.
Some regions like the Southwest and Southeast
have seen an increasing trend for droughts while
others such as the Northeast and Midwest
have seen an increasing trends in floods.
Natural drivers of climate cannot explain
the recent observed changes.
These changes are not due to the sun,
they're not caused by natural cycles.
The majority of the warming at the global
scale for the last 50 years can only
be explained by the effects of human influences,
especially the emissions from burning
of fossil fuels and from deforestation.
This conclusion that human influences are primary
driver of recent climate change is based
on multiple lines of evidence.
Independent evidence.
One is the fundamental understanding
of how certain gases trap heat, how the climate system
responds to increases in these gases,
and how other human and natural factors influence climate.
Another reason comes from reconstructions
of past climates using evidence such as tree rings,
ice cores, and corals.
These show that global surface temperatures
over the past several decades are clearly unusual
with the last decade warmer than any time
in the last 1,300 years and perhaps much longer.
Another line of evidence comes from using models
to simulate the climate of the past century.
Natural factors like the sun and volcanic activity
would have tended to slightly cool the Earth
in the last 50 years and other natural variations
are too small to explain the amount of warming.
Only when the human influences are included
do the models reproduce the warming observed
over this time period.
Thank you.
Dr. Tom Karl: Thank you, Gary and Don.
My name is Tom Carl.
I'm the Director of NOAA's National Climatic Data
Center and I also Chair the Interagency
U.S. Global Change Research Program.
Well, today I'm going to try and paint
a picture for you of expected changes in climate based
on the present path of global
greenhouse gas emissions.
Much of this information that I will talk about --
not all, but much is based on improved
climate models, particularly compared
to previous assessments.
We've got more models with higher resolution,
more physical processes represented.
So let me just highlight a few aspects
of future climate expected by the end of this century.
First, for temperature, it's going to be hotter.
On average about 8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer.
Compare that to the warmth of the increasing warming
temperatures we've seen and the order
of a degree and a half since the turn of the 20th century.
And temperature changes up to 15 degrees
warmer in Alaska.
There will be fewer cold extremes
and many more hot extremes.
There will be fewer frost days with a frost-free
season increasing between 30 to 70 days,
depending on the location.
For precipitation, the moist areas will
get wetter in the order of 10 to 30 percent.
The arid areas will get drier in the order
of 10 to 20 percent.
As a result, soil moisture will be reduced
in much of the country, particularly in the Southwest
and the central U.S.
Both due to less precipitation
and hotter temperatures increasing evaporation rates.
To go along with this, a number of consecutive
dry days are expected to increase while
at the same time the frequency and intensity of extreme
precipitation events is expected
to increase across much of the continental U.S. up to four
times more than what we see at the present
and as much as six times greater in Alaska.
The environment for severe thunderstorms
is expected to become more favorable in the future.
The most intense hurricanes
are expected to become stronger and more frequent
with rainfall rates increasing in the order of 20 percent
near the center of the storms.
For sea level, global sea level rise is expected
to increase in the order of one to four feet
with even greater rises where land is subsiding.
For sea ice, summer sea ice
is expected to disappear by 2050 of this century.
The bottom line.
The current path we're on will result
in a climate that is far different than anything
that this nation has experienced.
Thanks.
Dr. Radley Horton: Thanks, Tom.
My name is Radley Horton and I'm happy to speak
with you today about the findings of the Northeast
region, one of the eight regions
covered by this report.
In the Northeast, we've seen sea level rise
of about a foot on average in the past century.
We've also seen temperatures increase
by almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit
over the past century.
And these heavy downpours that we've heard
about are now producing on the order of 70 percent more
rainfall than they were just half
a century or so ago.
These climate changes are already leading
to impacts throughout the Northeast and beyond.
When we think about the impacts of sea level rise,
the central part of that, central range of that
projection that Tom just mentioned,
two to three feet, would more than triple the frequency
of coastal flooding throughout the Northeast
and beyond, even if storms
did not become any stronger.
For some places like New York City,
what had been a 1 in 100 year flood event becomes something
that you expect during
the lifetime of the typical mortgage.
Even if storms do not become any stronger.
Within the Northeast, we have critical
infrastructure right along our dense coastline.
Everything from our iconic transportation networks,
I-95, Amtrak, commuter rail networks,
to electric grid.
Substations right along the coast.
Waste water treatment plants along the coast.
All increasingly vulnerable
as sea levels rise.
This puts populations at risk, it jeopardizes
commerce, human safety, and as we heard leads
to expensive repairs as well.
As we saw during Hurricane Sandy,
all of these infrastructure networks are connected.
If one part of that system goes down,
if we have electrical grid failures,
it cascades into other systems.
It's harder to pump water out of subway station,
for example, when the electric grid goes down.
Another important risk to highlight
is the danger associated with more frequent
heat waves as temperatures rise.
We know that the very young, the elderly,
and some of our disadvantaged populations
are most vulnerable.
As temperatures rise,
cities have unique vulnerabilities.
Air quality is often poor when those temperatures
are really high and there's a greater
risk of power going out as we see increasing
demand for air conditioning.
But it's not just the cities that
are going to be vulnerable in the Northeast
to heat in the future.
As temperatures rise, some of the northerly areas
that in the past haven't needed air conditioning
as much are going to increasingly
be relying on it.
Quickly, too, intense precipitation events
pose some unique hazards for some
of our inland and rural regions.
If we look at some of the mountainous parts
of the Northeast, a lot of the human populations,
transportation, agriculture
is concentrated in valleys.
With more of those heavy rain events,
there's a risk of more flooding.
In general, whether you're talking about cities
or rural areas, more combined sewer overflow events,
more failure of sewer systems.
A public health hazard throughout
the Northeast and beyond.
But it's important to highlight that
we have opportunities as well.
The Northeast, whether from cities
or states have shown leadership in thinking
about these climate risks.
We've seen ambitious efforts to begin to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions and we've seen steps
to adapt to these climate changes as well.
In general, though, implementation
is at early stages but fortunately this report offers a
range of strategies to help close those gaps.
Thank you.
Dr. Kim Knowlton: Thank you, Radley.
And everyone.
It's a real pleasure and honor
to be with all of you today and my colleagues here.
I'm Kim Knowlton.
I was one of the authors on the Human Health
chapter and I just want to that when we talk about
public health, climate change
becomes very personal.
We've always thought of climate change
as something that happens to someone else,
but now we know it's happening to us right now.
And there's a few ways that climate change
is fueling some of the most important kinds of extreme
weather events that really affect people's heatlh.
My colleagues have mentioned extreme rainfall
events, those big deluges that just
send lots and lots of rain.
In fact, in the Northeast where I live,
where I'm from, there's been a 71 percent increase
in the amount of rainfall that comes down in the most
extreme rainfall events.
In the last 50 years.
That's already happening.
The hospital where I was born in upstate New York
in Binghamton was flooded up to the first floor in
2006 by rising river waters
after torrential rains.
And those kinds of rainfall events are
projected to increase five-fold in the future
with climate change.
In our children's lifetimes.
Radley mentioned heat waves and those
are a big concern being fueled by climate change again.
And extreme heat also increases
drought risks, wildfire risks.
Those affect people's health.
Now, heat is not just an inconvenience,
it can be lethal.
It can send thousands of people to emergency rooms
as it has done in the past.
Another dimension of this is that there's
millions of people in our country who are more
vulnerable to the effects of heat
and other climate health effects.
That includes millions of people age 65 and older.
And we're all getting older, as nature has it.
Our youngest Americans, people living
in economic disadvantage, some communities of color.
People who already have breathing,
heart, lung problems.
So, people who are already struggling to stay healthy
are going to find that's more
of a struggle as climate change continues.
An example.
Today is World Asthma Day.
There's 26 million people in the United States
that have asthma.
Part of our concerns are that rising
temperatures worsen air pollution.
Air pollution from ground-level smog
to fine particles to pollen can trigger asthma attacks.
Rising temperatures are also making the length
of time that plants produce that pollen longer.
Already since 1995 there's been a two to three
week increase in the length of ragweed
pollen production season in a swath of states
in the central U.S. and Canada.
Now, that matters to people who have asthma.
But we have huge opportunities
as my colleagues have said to make improvements
that affect us all and the assessment
report really focuses on those opportunities.
An example.
If we reduce the amount of fossil fuels
we use to get energy, we stand to one reduce air pollution
that we generate from that activity right now.
That's a win for health today.
Two, we get a double benefit because
we can reduce heat-trapping
carbon pollution emissions.
That's a win for our kids, for the future.
And three, if we step away from taking
every short trip to the school, to work, to business
in cars and substitute biking, walking paths,
more public transit.
We get a chance for more physical activity.
That's triple.
We stand to establish all kinds of wins
for public health.
So, we're really at this crossroads now in terms
of using the assessment and the body of science
that we've collected thanks to the work
of many scientists to make informed decisions
about where we go from here and trying to create
a future that really has a human face on it and that's
healthier and more secure.
So, I'm really honored to be part of that
conversation with my colleagues
and with all of you.
Thank you.
Dr. Gene Takle: Thank you, Dr. Knowlton.
I'm Gene Takle, co-author
of the agriculture chapter.
An overarching theme of the agriculture chapter
is that crop and animal agriculture
producers in the U.S.
are already facing increased challenges from
changes in climate.
To put this into context, U.S.
agriculture is very diverse with most regions
having crops and animals that are highly adapted to
local climate conditions.
Local temperature, rainfall, and soils
dictate what crops are grown and where.
Likewise, animal agriculture
is practiced where climate allows grazing opportunities,
animal comfort, and low disease potential.
Specialization and intensification
that have increased productivity have also tightened
the relationship between agriculture and climate.
In the Midwest, where I'm from, we have more rain
coming in the first half the year
and less in the second half.
We have a 40 year trend of increased extreme rainfall
events that are delaying or preventing the planting
of soybeans and corn.
There's also a rising concern about
the increase in soil erosion accompanying these extreme
rain events.
California producers are facing a different but
analogous set of challenges including
drought and heat impacts on vegetable production.
On the other hand, there's been a decline in the last
50 years in the number of
chilling hours necessary for fruit trees and grapes
to maintain a high production.
Cherry trees, for instance, that require
at least 900 chilling hours between growing seasons
no longer meet the minimum chilling requirements
in some parts of California due to warmer winters
in the last half century.
Many parts of Texas and Oklahoma in 2011
experienced more than 100 days over 100 degrees
Fahrenheit with both states setting new
high temperature records and rates of water loss
were double the long-term average,
depleting water resources and contributing more than
$10 billion in direct losses to agriculture.
These trends in temperature and
precipitation that pose threats to agricultural
production observed over the U.S.
are likely to continue and become much more
severe under the high carbon emissions scenarios.
These trends are consistent with
the global trends of dry regions getting drier and hotter
and wet regions getting wetter and more humid.
All such trends pose threats
to U.S. agriculture.
Farmers are beginning to connect the dots
and recognize that local climates underpinning
their multi-generational livelihoods
and rural agri-business communities are changing.
They are forced to seek increasingly more costly
strategies to adapt to these changes
in order to maintain profitability.
By mid-century under current climate emissions
trends, it is unlikely that adaptation strategies
will be sufficient to avoid the negative
impacts to most U.S.
crop and livestock production.
Thank you.
Dr. Susanne Moser: Thank you, Gene.
Good afternoon.
My name is Susanne Moser and it's my great honor
to introduce you to the coastal chapter.
The essence of the story that we're trying
to tell in the coastal chapter is actually quite simple.
It simply says what happens to our coast
will happen to our nation.
More than half of the American public lives
in a coastal county producing nearly 60 percent
of gross domestic product.
9 out of 10 consumer products that you use
in your house today and your home came through
one of our nation's ports.
If you put gas in your tank, if you bought
seafood today for dinner, well then you are
inextricably linked to what happens
at our shores.
It's these and many other facts like that
that make it clear no matter where you live in this country,
you will feel the consequences
of climate change on our shores.
Let's say you don't live
in Portsmith, New Hampshire or northern Virginia or Charleston,
South Carolina where the streets
already regularly flood during particularly high tides.
Say you don't live in Cape Cod or on Hawaii
where the salt water already pushes into coastal
ground water reservoirs that people depend on.
Or say you don't live in the bayous of southern
Louisiana where every 24 minutes,
one football field worth of land is lost forever
to the combined impacts of sinking land
and rising seas.
Well, then it might come as a surprise
to you that climate change is no longer
a hypothetical threat in some distant future.
As we speak, it already leads to intermittent
disruptions for businesses and everyday lives.
It's already an expensive headache
for those maintaining our coastal roads, airports,
and sewage treatment plants.
Sea level rise is already eroding
away invaluable beaches and dunes and wet lands and with
them the habitat for countless animal and plant species.
And as that sea level continues to rise,
these issues will grow from an
intermittent to a chronic problem and
during coastal storms to life-threatening dangers.
In small coastal villages in Alaska as much
as in some of our biggest, most vibrant cities like LA,
Houston, or as we saw in Sandy, in the Big Apple.
So, in our chapter we show how the lifelines
like roads and bridges, energy infrastructure
and water pipes are a growing risk from
sea level rise and storm surges.
We show how nationally important assets
are at risk of being repeatedly disrupted
by storms and floods.
We also show how many of our most vulnerable
populations are more exposed
to coastal risks and have fewer options to adapt.
And then how coastal habitats that
we love and need are at the tipping point
of irreversible damage.
But what our chapter will also tell you is that
coastal managers are actually beginning
to recognize these dangers and are working
hard to find solutions.
Clearly, there are no simple, easy solutions,
but then again America didn't become
a great nation because it was easy.
What they show us is that we can with hard work
reduce these risks, get better prepared,
and work together with foresight for a safer future.
Thank you.
Dr. Gary Yohe: Well, thank you all.
I've been looking out.
It's a little hard beyond those lights.
Not a lot of smiles.
(laughter)
Dr. Gary Yohe: One of the questions that I thought
I would ponder and ask my colleagues as we maybe
collect some questions from you all and once
you're done, I will actually answer it myself,
but in 15 to 30 seconds, what keeps
you up at night?
Dr. Don Wuebbles: So, this is Don Wuebbles again.
I live in the Midwest.
I don't live in the coastal areas,
so as bad as all those coastal things Suzy was talking
about frighten me as much as all of us.
The things that really worry me,
keep me up at night is the concerns about severe weather
and it's not what we already know,
it's what we don't know.
We're trying to learn exactly what's
happening with severe thunderstorms in order.
Are we likely to get more and stronger
tornadoes in the future?
Are we going to have more ice storms?
Are we going to have more hail?
We don't know those things yet.
We have some pieces of evidence that are pointing
in certain directions that they could be --
that things like lightning or tornadoes
could become more intense.
But we're still in early stages of the research.
And so I worry about the research that
I and my colleagues need to do to really learn what
needs to be learned there.
Dr. Thomas Karl: Thanks, Gary.
A couple things come to mind.
For me it's those events that are feasible
but not so likely.
So, what we talked about here today are those
events we have considerable confidence
as we continue the path we're on will eventually occur.
But there are a number of events that are feasible
but perhaps not so likely, but if they do occur,
they could be quite a surprise.
Jerry mentioned them earlier.
Jerry Mellilo with respect to the collapse
of the major ice sheets.
Antarctica, Greenland.
Another one is feedback from the melting
of permafrost, rapid releases of methane and
carbon dioxide have been stored
in the ice for many, many centuries.
Pretend an additional burden on the atmosphere
with respect to greenhouse gases that could actually
accelerate the changes that we've
already been talking about.
Dr. Radley Horton: So, following
up along a similar vein.
I worry about loss of sea ice in the Arctic.
We've seen by 2012 about a 50 percent reduction
in the area of late summer sea ice and about
a 75 percent reduction in the volume.
One of the reasons that's a cause for concern
is that that's a faster rate than the models
projected when run with increasing greenhouse gases.
It raises the possibility that while climate models
are absolutely our best tools for projecting
the future instead of creating this bound
of possible outcomes, it alludes to things we heard
from Jerry, things we heard from Tom that
at this sort of tail risk, worst case scenarios,
there are possibilities potentially outside
of what climate models suggest that we need to be thinking
about as well when we protect our long-term concerns.
Dr. Kim Knowlton: Okay.
What keeps me awake at night?
I worry about two things that come to mind.
Cumulative effects on people's health
of one storm then another storm, then poor, poor air
pollution in communities that are already
challenged by being next to places,
facilities that emit air pollution over time.
Then there's a heat wave.
I worry about people's resilience
both economically, health wise, and mentally, spiritually.
Even strong people have a tough time
being responsive and on their game
with event after event after event and that's
what climate change is doing.
Creating multiple events.
The second one is multiple system failure.
We depend on our cities' hospitals and roadways
and electrical power to provide
air conditioning when it's hot as heck outside.
And when it goes down, everyone
is in the middle of a heat wave with very little way to escape
or, in the case of a storm, it really compromises
a way to get to safety.
So, I think that those are real opportunity areas
for us to look into and keep people healthy.
Dr. Gene Takle: I worry about food security, both
globally and in the U.S.
because social unrest happens
very quickly under food insecurity.
And I've talked about the production side of it,
but that's only one part of food security.
It involves transportation,
it involves processing, it involves storage.
And so, any breakdown in any of those from any
of the factors that we've already talked about
could lead to food security which could lead
to social unrest very quickly.
Dr. Susanne Moser: Thank you.
The question, Gary, that you ask
"What keeps you up at night?"
is the translation that we use in the coastal
chapter actually to get at what are we most vulnerable to?
And that is a mixed of really what is coming
from climate change but also what is it meeting
on the ground.
It's the social vulnerability.
It's our economic capacity to deal with it and so,
if you just look at sea level rise, you might say well,
Miami is right at the front lines.
But Miami has some pretty significant capacity
to deal with it.
I'm actually much more worried about
the small communities that are facing similarly big risks
but don't have the power of Mayor Bloomberg,
Anna-New York City, and not of LA
and not of the big cities.
So, that is really the combination that
keeps me up at night.
Dr. Gary Yohe: Thank you.
I promised that I would answer it as well,
and it really feeds off of what Suzy just said.
What keeps me up at night is a persistence
across the population not to recognize that the old,
normal climate is broken and we don't
know what the new normal climate is going to be.
And that that lack of recognition and the
inability of this community and decision makers
to communicate those risks
to individuals unnecessarily
puts economic assets at risk,
unnecessarily puts human lives at risk,
unnecessarily puts ecosystems at risk.
And when I wake up in the middle of the night,
that's what worries me.
Okay.
What do you see as bright spots in how
we are responding to climate change at the federal,
state, and local level?
Actually, I just got these.
But I actually think that that's the point
of the second panel.
How can the NCA help decision makers?
That is as well.
(laughter)
Dr. Gary Yohe: What is the estimated increase
in health care costs?
Do we have any cogent estimates?
Dr. Kim Knowlton: We have taken a look --
not in the National Climate Assessment per say,
but in an important study that is cited and referenced.
We want the assessment to be a really important
working foundational document.
There was a study that looked at six events
of types that climate change is going to increase
in frequency or extent or the duration in the future,
but these are six events that happened today.
Have already happened in the last
decade between 2000 and 2009.
The health-related costs were $14 to 40 billion.
And those health costs don't typically get
included when we estimate very important
infrastructure and roadway and building costs from
these extreme weather events.
So, I think that that's an important
dimension to consider.
Dr. Gary Yohe: Okay.
I just got a great balancing question.
We heard the concerns of the panel.
What gives them the most hope that we can meet the
challenges of climate change?
And I think this is only fair.
Dr. Don Wuebbles: Oh, I agree.
I give a lot of public talks about climate change
because I feel it's important to put my time
in to explain to people why this
is such an important issue.
I worry about our children and our grandchildren and
the future they're going to face.
But in my talks I usually talking about
our hope for the future.
We as Americans have shown through history that
we know how to solve problems and I think
we can solve this.
We can deal with it, but we have to make
that choice and get on with it.
Dr. Thomas Karl: So, I think there's a great
advantage in this issue and that is this nation
is very weather-conscious.
We hear about it every day.
It's always in the picture.
And it's quite clear that we are experiencing
changes that quite literally
are unprecedented in this nation's history.
As more people see these changes,
they are talked about.
The President did a talk about it
today with a number
of TV weathercasters and broadcasters.
I think there's very, very much hope there
in terms of trying to reach out and education the broad
populace on the problem we face
and how we can solve it.
Dr. Radley Horton: I just quickly echo that
I do think we may be sort of slow to get going with
change, but I think if you look at some historical
precedents, once we get started,
change can happen quickly.
And we can already see throughout
the Northeast and beyond examples of how cities
are dealing with heat events, planting more trees,
getting air conditioners in some cases,
and cooling centers to the most vulnerable populations.
Having heat wave action plans.
Facing the climate risk, elevating critical
infrastructure, elevating houses,
having discussion about coastal zone planning.
Even more mundane things.
Increasing the size of culverts, drainage pipes.
When they're undergoing sort
of a routine maintenance and repair and just adding
in a factor to account for these larger increases
and expected extreme precipitation.
Dr. Kim Knowlton: Well, at the risk of being
idealistic, the fact that everyone here
is definitely interested in this issue and there's
so much attention to it because
it affects everyone.
Climate change affects all of us,
and I think there's a rising sense of participation
and we're all in this together.
And I think that recent events with extreme
weather have brought that home.
No one likes to think about very tough problems
when there aren't solutions
and I actually think that the assessment report provides
information that's really accessible
about opportunities that we have to make decisions
that are going to get us to a better place and hopefully
it will inspire leadership at every level
to step forward and be part of that.
Dr. Gene Takle: I'm excited about what
I see in terms of local food systems and the more
interest in local foods and reducing
the number of food miles.
Do we really need strawberries
from Argentina in the middle of January or can we go back
to some of the excitement I remember
as a child growing up of getting fruit in season because
it was such a rare thing.
Can't we go back to some of those and,
in the process, reduce food miles and perhaps
even increase our nutritional value?
Dr. Susanne Moser: The thing that gives me the
greatest hope are you all.
And the people that I work with on a regular
basis in my day-to-day job.
It's the people that are leading the efforts
in coastal communities.
It's the people who are willing
to step outside the colored lines and draw outside those
and do something new.
Work together across their disciplinary lines,
walk across to the other division,
to the next apartment, to the next community down the stream.
That, to me, is the greatest hope and it's one
thing I can tell you we don't
do a good job yet of putting into climate models.
The human spirit is not well modeled --
(laughter)
Dr. Susanne Moser: -- and I will tell you
it is the most important factor in getting us off
of where we are right now and onto a different path.
Dr. Gary Yohe: Okay.
We're getting close to the end of time.
One last question that I got and I think it's
directed to me, so I'm going to try to answer.
Can you speak to the economic costs associated
with climate change from the perspective of what
the National Climate Assessment has taught us?
And what I can say is that there will be costs
of climate change.
We're already experiencing them.
They will get larger and they are calibrated
not always in dollars and cents but
in human lives and ecosystems.
Whatever the appropriate metric.
There will be some costs to the responses
that we think about.
Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases
or increasing resilience and preparedness
to future climate changes.
But what you find over and over again from
the specific examples that are located throughout
the assessment is that the costs of not doing
anything is much higher than the cost
of doing something, and that the cost of not doing
something only increase dramatically over
the next few years, over the next decade,
and into the future from there.
So, with that, I thank you for your attention
in panel one and Dr. Holdren is back.
(laughter)
(applause)