States of Change

After Irene, Updating New York's Transportation Infrastructure

Last week, a story on American Public Media’s Marketplace pointed out that New York rail and subway repairs following Hurricane Irene have revealed a troublesome relationship between extreme weather and transportation.

Expanding public transportation can, of course, reduce the number of people driving cars, which should lower greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. But extreme weather events, some of which are already increasing due to climate change, take a toll on transportation infrastructure. Unfortunately, the money needed to repair rail lines, roads, and subway tunnels after storms or heatwaves typically cuts right into the budget for expansion.

It’s a bit of a vicious circle, really: these extreme events set back growth of public transportation, at a time when a lot more public transportation could help slow down climate change.

The silver lining, reporter Andrea Bernstein points out, is that doing major repairs presents a great opportunity to make the transportation system more weather-ready and prepared for climate change than it was before.

Dec 02

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In some of these impacts, New Jersey has been ahead of other places in feeling the effects [of climate change].

Columbia University professor Kim Knowlton, at a Rutgers University workshop on expected impacts of global climate change in New Jersey.

Among the serious anticipated risks of climate change in the Garden State are:

more than 15 inches of sea level rise around Atlantic City in just the next 40 years
more frequent inland and coastal flooding
more hot days, including long stretches of 100-degree-plus days each summer

Alaska Natives Take Energy Companies to Court Over Climate Change

This morning, KQED Radio highlighted a case Alaskan natives are bringing against energy companies, including ExxonMobil and Chevron (starts at 00:35). KQED’s Craig Miller also has a detailed account of the case.

Coastal Alaskan villages, like Kivalina, have seen dramatic sea level rise in recent years and the higher water makes them increasingly vulnerable to damaging waves during storms. Alaska locals say the blame lies with the energy companies because rising atmospheric carbon emissions from fossil fuels are contributing to global climate change.

Nov 28

Climate Change Impacts in New York State

The recent ClimAID report shows that New York is already facing impacts from global climate change, and the effects are going to continue over the coming decades.

Here’s a taste of what could be coming for New York:

warmer temperatures and more heat waves (which could lead to more blackouts)
greater flood risk during storms, brought on by sea level rise
shrinking snowpack in the Adirondacks
longer and warmer growing seasons means some crops that were ideally grown in the New York climate will suffer — but some new crops could flourish.

Check out some of the other impacts New York may encounter…

Aug 19

From the Front Lines of Climate: Mary Edna Fraser

The old cliche is that a picture is worth a thousand words.

When we started our “States of Change” tumblr, our main goal was to draw from the news of the day to try and convey climate change in a way that is relevant to your every day life. Yet in trying to communicate the complexity, and sometimes beauty, of an ever- shifting landscape due to a mixture of human and natural influences, it is important to take a step back and look at the big picture.

Today’s featured person does just that. Mary Edna Fraser is an accomplished artist who uses the artistic medium of Batik to convey an aerial perspective of a wide range of natural landscapes ranging from lakes and mountains to barrier islands. Currently, she and geoscientist Orrin Pilkey are being featured in the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science for their large-scale exhibit of silk batiks on “Our Expanding Oceans”, which corresponds to their most recent book, entitled “Global Climate Change: A Primer”. Below are Mary’s own words describing both the inspiration and methodology behind her work:

“The subject of Climate Change is difficult to understand from a scientific point of view. People feel overwhelmed, and my assignment was to illustrate sea level rise, ocean acidification, glacier and sea ice melting, changing habitats, desertification, and threats to the planet with my large-scale batiks on silk. Showing the vulnerability of individual locations makes it easier to ponder the reality before us a human beings. Half of the artworks were completed prior to the decision to make this book, and the exhibit features more aesthetic silks.”

“Photographing from the open cockpit of my family’s vintage plane translates to silk prayers for the planet. We live in a time when fact is questioned and often scoffed [at]. Perhaps the batiks will help open windows into the minds presently shuttered. Education enlightens and our future [and] depends on honest conversation based on empirical reality.”

All of the pictures shown are from Mary’s new exhibit. If you would like to learn more about them check out this site detailing the location of each picture and the medium used.

Credits: Mary Edna Fraser

Aug 18

Extreme Weather 2011: By The Numbers (and Dollars)

Although it’s only August - with the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season still ahead, the United States has already tied its yearly record for billion dollar plus weather disasters. Check out some of these numbers, as reported by Reuters, via the National Weather Service:

$35 Billion: The total estimated damages from floods, tornadoes, heat waves, and drought that have occurred so far this year in the United States.

250: The approximate number of natural disasters that occurred in the US in 2010. This number was triple what is was only 20 years ago.

108: The number of weather-related disasters that have caused more than $1 billion in damage during the past 30 years.

9: The amount of natural disasters this year that have caused an economic loss of $1 billion or more.

$20 Billion: The total cost of thunderstorm losses for the first half of 2011. This cost is double the the three-year average of $10 billion for this point in time.

14-19: The total number of tropical storms and hurricanes that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has projected will occur in 2011. So far, only seven named storms have formed, none of which have been hurricanes. Tropical Storm Don was the only one to make landfall in the U.S.

Source: Reuters, National Weather Service

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I don’t think it takes a wizard to predict 2011 is likely to go down as one of the more extreme years for weather in history

Jack Hayes, Director of the National Weather Service via Reuters

(Source: reuters.com)

Aug 12

Nearly one-third of all the carbon dioxide (CO2) that is released into the atmosphere is absorbed by Earth’s oceans. While this process slows the rate of climate change, a negative aspect of this cycle is ocean acidification. By changing the natural pH balance of Earth’s waters, animals who live in the sea and those that depend on the sea for food will soon have to learn how to readjust to the ever changing watery landscape. While this process is well documented among marine animals such as lobster, crabs, and corals in more tropical waters near the Florida Keys, the effects acidification has on organisms in the Arctic Ocean is still relatively unknown.

The above video from the U.S Geological Survey (USGS) details some of the basics of ocean acidification, and provides an overview of their mission to document the effects of ocean acidification.

Credit: U.S Geological Survey

(Source: gallery.usgs.gov)

Aug 09

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I think I need to google how to do a rain dance, because we haven’t seen rain in TX and OK for two months”.

Vincenzo Moretti courtesy of CNN

(Source: CNN)