The National Centers for Environmental Information and An Overview of Climate Change

Transcription

1 The National Centers for Environmental Information and An Overview of Climate Change David R. Easterling, Ph.D. NOAA/NESDIS/National Centers for Environmental Information Asheville, NC

2 National Centers for Environmental Information Steward of the Nation s Environmental Information With data that spans Stone Age to Space Age, from the depths of the ocean to the sun, and across the globe

3 NCEI Holds a Nationwide Presence National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Asheville, North Carolina, Headquarters Boulder, Colorado Silver Spring, Maryland Stennis Space Center, Mississippi NCEI Field Locations Regional Climate Services Directors (RCSD) Cooperative Institutes Regional Climate Centers (RCC)

4 Volume (Petabytes) NCEI Environmental Data Archive Volume Increasing Data Volumes from Station, Model, Radar, and Satellite Sources 2015 Total: 24 Petabytes 24 PB = Storage in a stack of iphones 16 Eiffel Towers high (1,063 feet) Due to increase in satellite and model data

5 Reference Products Climate Normals World Ocean Atlas Earth s Magnetic Field Reference Environmental Data Records Gulf of Mexico Data Coastal/Ocean Depths

6 NCEI Monitors and Assesses Earth s Environment Monthly U.S. & Global Climate Reports U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather & Climate Disasters Report Harmful Algal Bloom Observing System Wildfire Interactive Maps Tornado Climatology Regional Ocean Climatologies Hypoxia Watch Regional Snowfall Index

7 Climate Change: What s the Evidence?

8 Weather vs. Climate Weather is local and short-term. It can change day to day, hour to hour, and even minute to minute. Climate is what the weather is normally like year to year and decade to decade. Climate is usually measured over periods of about 30 years. Climate tells you what clothes to buy and have in your wardrobe. Weather tells you what to wear each day. ING Miami Marathon and Half Marathon January 2008 Florida Kahtoola Bigfoot Snowshoe Festival 50K and Marathon January 2010 Utah

9 2016 Was Warmest Year on Record

10 Where Was It Warm?

11 Where Has It Warmed? Annual Temperature Trends

12 But what about satellite measurements? Both surface air temperatures and satellite-based temperatures show warming but there are differences between surface and troposphere temperature trends. Lower troposphere (layer centered about feet up) and Surface are very different.

13 Satellite Temperatures: 2016 Was Also Warmest on Record

14 Was there really a hiatus in warming over the last few years?

15 Global Temperatures Had Smaller Warming Trend for Period.

16 NCEI scientists have done a number of papers looking at the hiatus Easterling, D.R., and M.F. Wehner, 2009: Is the climate warming or cooling? Geophys. Res. Letts, 36, doi: /2009gl Karl, T.R., A. Arguez, B. Huang, J. Lawrimore, J. McMahon, M. Menne, T. Peterson, R. Vose, H-M. Zhang, 2015: The recent global surface warming hiatus: Fact or artifact of data biases, Science, DOI: /science.aaa5632 Yan, X-H, T. Boyer, K. Trenberth, T. Karl, S-P Xie, V. Nieves, K-K Tung, and D. Roemmich, 2016: The global warming hiatus: Slowdown or redistribution?, Earth s Future, DOI: /2016EF

17 Was the Hiatus Real? A new version of our data set recently released shows no hiatus Why? 1. New corrections for drifting buoys, which are slightly colder than ship observations. 2. Much more land surface temperature data than had been previously available. 17

18 NCEI results confirmed by Berkeley Earth Temperature Project Hausfather, Z., et al. in ScienceAdvances, Jan. 4, 2017

19 Possible reasons The sun Why is it warming? Stuff in the atmosphere

20 Without a natural greenhouse effect Earth s average temperature would be close to 0 o F rather than it s current 58 o F average. Earth s Atmosphere

21 Aerosols and the Atmosphere Shortterm cooling about 13 months

22 Temperature vs Sun s Energy Output

23 Climate Forcings:Anthropogenic (Human Induced)

24 Recent Greenhouse Gas Trends Methane CO 2 is now over 400 PPM Nitrous Oxide Most major greenhouse gases are Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) Methane (CH 4 ) Nitrous Oxide (N 2 O)

25 Other Indicators of Climate Change

26 All indicators expected to increase in a warming world are increasing and those expected to decrease are decreasing

27 Changes in Muir Glacier, Alaska: From 1941 to 2004 August 1941 August 2004 Image Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center From 1941 to 2004, the glacier retreated more than seven miles and thinned by more than 875 yards and ocean water filled the valley.

28 Ice Loss from the Two Polar Ice Sheets

29 Arctic Sea Ice Decline

30 Past Changes Global Sea Level

31 Third National Climate Assessment Climate Change Impacts in the United States

32 REPORT FINDING 1 Global climate is changing and this is apparent across the US in a wide range of observations. The global warming of the past 50 years is primarily due to human activities, predominantly the burning of fossil fuels.

33 Observed US Temperature Change,

34 Observed US Precipitation Change

35 2: EXTREME WEATHER Some extreme weather and climate events have increased in recent decades, and new and stronger evidence confirms that some of these increases are related to human activities. Observed Trends in Heavy Precipitation Events in the U.S.

36 Observed Change in Very Heavy Precipitation Climate 101

37 What about hurricanes? The intensity, frequency, and duration of North Atlantic hurricanes, as well as the frequency of the strongest hurricanes, have all increased since the early 1980s. Hurricane intensity and rainfall are projected to increase as the climate continues to warm. Third National Climate Assessment, 2014 Observed power dissipation index. A measure of the destructive potential of hurricane winds. Climate 101

38 3: FUTURE CLIMATE Human-induced climate change is projected to continue, and it will accelerate significantly if emissions of heat-trapping gases continue to increase.

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40 CMIP5: Annual Temperature Change

41 CMIP5: Winter Precipitation Change

42 Shift in Plant Hardiness Zones

43 Projected Changes Global Sea Level

44 Vulnerability to Sea Level Rise

45 Concluding Thoughts There are both positive and negative impacts to global warming Overall, the net impacts are likely to be negative Ecosystems have evolved and human systems are adapted to the current climate

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47 Thank you for your time! To visit the NCEI website ncei.noaa.gov To access the Climate Change in the United States report, please visit: nca2014.globalchange.gov

48 Backup Slides

49 Increasing Temperatures Correlate with Human Influences Global Temperature and CO 2 Separating Human and Natural Influences on Climate

50 Was the Medieval Warm Period Warmer Than Today?

51 Global Temperature Projections To 2200 for Different Emissions Scenarios

52 Global Temperature Through Deep Time

53 CMIP5: Summer Precipitation Change RCP8.5 Weighted Unweighted