U.S. Climate Has Already Changed, Study Finds, Citing Heat and Floods

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The effects of human-induced climate change are being felt in every corner of the United States, scientists reported Tuesday, with water growing scarcer in dry regions, torrential rains increasing in wet regions, heat waves becoming more common and more severe, wildfires growing worse, and forests dying under assault from heat-loving insects.

Such sweeping changes have been caused by an average warming of less than 2 degrees Fahrenheit over most land areas of the country in the past century, the scientists found. If greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane continue to escalate at a rapid pace, they said, the warming could conceivably exceed 10 degrees by the end of this century.

“Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present,” the scientists declared in a major new report assessing the situation in the United States.

“Summers are longer and hotter, and extended periods of unusual heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced,” the report continued. “Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours. People are seeing changes in the length and severity of seasonal allergies, the plant varieties that thrive in their gardens, and the kinds of birds they see in any particular month in their neighborhoods.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/science/earth/climate-change-report.html?smid=tw-bna&_r=1

[Jacque67 7,328]

Climates have always been changing . Nothing is status quo. Adapt!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Climates have always been changing . Nothing is status quo. Adapt!

Not like this and certainly never at this rate. Such rapid rate of change is unadaptable for most species on this planet. Life and earth will go on, but life as we know it will cease.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Change is good. This trend is even better. So many more of the world's resources will be exposed for human exploitation. Food production will dramatically increase. Countries like Canada, Scandinavian europe, and Russia will be especially blessed.

[lostinblue 1,989]

the 20th century stands out as one of the wettest over the last 1,300 years, yet the droughts of the mid-1920s, 1977 and the late 1980s caused immense hardship for society, based as it is on heavy water usage. California's rapidly growing population and enormous agricultural industry rely on irrigation and groundwater.

climate archives going further back reveal that droughts often lasted much longer than a decade, causing large lakes to shrink or dry up completely, more frequent wildfires and native populations to embark on massive migrations. A particularly dry stretch occurred between AD 900 and 1400 (during the Medieval Warm Period), with two 100-year droughts in California and the Southwest. Throughout the Southwest, archaeological remains show that flourishing civilizations all but disappeared as their agricultural bases withered.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ingram-california-drought-20140203-story.html

All about control nothing else.