NEWS

EPA issues dire new warning on effects of climate change

07/18/2008

By Shaun McKinnon

Climate change threatens the health and well-being of every American but could widen the divide between people who can adapt to a more hostile environment and society’s youngest, oldest and poorest, a new government report said Thursday.

No area of the country will escape the effects of rising temperatures, from rising sea levels on the Alaskan coast to deadly heat waves in New England, said the report, released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Arizona and the West sit at a critical crossroads, their growing cities increasingly vulnerable to heat, drought, wildfire, bad air and energy shortages.
The report was unusually blunt for an agency criticized for its past response to climate change. Written by scientists, the document acknowledges that the effects of global warming are already evident and will become more evident in the next 50 years. The report also affirms parts of a 2007 international climate study that spelled in detail the serious nature of climate change.

"The message is coming out loud and clear that climate change is very real," said Jonathan Overpeck, director of the University of Arizona’s Institute for the Study of Planet Earth. "There’s no doubt that the findings of the (2007 study) are now being considered totally legitimate by the U.S. government."

What the report does not contain are recommendations to quell the warming. The Bush administration has refused to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions and has only recently admitted that the gasses play a role in global climate change.

Instead, the authors advise adapting to the changes and suggest that city, state and federal leaders begin a serious discussion about long-term sustainability.

Among the report’s findings:

• Warmer temperatures will produce more extreme weather conditions, triggering floods, more intense storms, longer droughts and extended hot-weather seasons.

• People will feel the effects beyond the immediate weather events. Water and airborne diseases could spread more quickly and more people could develop asthma or other pulmonary ailments. Deaths related to heat and declining air quality will climb rapidly among the most vulnerable: the young, elderly and poor.

• Climate change will hit hard in locations and among populations least-prepared to adapt. People in Boston or other Northern cities, for example, often lack air-conditioning and will suffer during heat waves.

• The economy will suffer. Dealing with the effects will strain government budgets and could hurt tourism. The report predicts widespread losses to cold-water fisheries and other recreational amenities.

For the West, the report foresees a hotter, drier future. Culling research from a growing number of climate researchers, the EPA scientists said climate change would disrupt the critical runoff cycle that provides water to millions of people.

Warmer winters shorten the snow season and send water into streams too early or hasten its evaporation. The Phoenix area relies on runoff from the Colorado, Salt and Verde rivers for about two-thirds of its annual water needs.

The shorter winter could also trigger an earlier wildfire season, which, in turn, would spew more soot into the air.

The disrupted runoff cycle may cause more serious problems than the EPA report predicted, according a separate study released this week through Purdue University.

That study used more detailed models and found that earlier snowmelt actually leads to even warmer temperatures, which then keep snow from accumulating in the mountains. The researchers believe the effect could reduce the amount of snow and runoff twice as much as earlier thought.

"If these projections become reality, then the ecosystems of the northern and central Rockies will undergo dramatic changes," said Gregg Garfin, one of the study’s authors and a deputy director at the UA institute.

UA’s Overpeck said the EPA report should focus greater attention on how climate change affects people. Arizonans will likely feel the heat before anything else as temperatures climb 10 degrees or more by late in this century, a figure Overpeck bases on the 2007 international report.

That would drive up the demand for water and, more critically, electricity to power air-conditioners. If both resources are in short supply, as researchers suggest, the results are obvious, Overpeck said.

"In the worst-case scenario, we’re talking about temperatures in the 100s from mid-spring through fall, even into early winter," he said. "Arizonans know it’s that long, hot summer season that’s the toughest part of living here. It could become a lot longer and a lot hotter."