The climate catastrophe is not safe anywhere in the US, but a new study identifies the most affected areas.

The climate catastrophe is not safe anywhere in the US, but a new study identifies the most affected areas.

According to a sobering new analysis from federal agencies, the effects of a fast-rising climate are already being felt throughout the US and will only get worse over the next ten years if fossil fuel use continues.

The US is slowly reducing its planet-warming pollution, but not quickly enough to meet national targets or the UN-approved target of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, beyond which scientists warn life on Earth will struggle to survive. This was stated in the Fifth National Climate Assessment, a report required by Congress that is typically due every five years.

According to Katharine Hayhoe, a renowned climate scientist at Texas Tech University and report contributor, this year’s assessment captures the fact that Americans are becoming more aware of and affected by climate change in their local areas.

“All facets of our lives are being impacted by climate change.”

A few of the report’s broad conclusions are still all too familiar: There is no area in the US that is completely safe from climatic disasters; every degree of warming contributes to more severe effects; and we are not using fossil fuels at a rate that will limit the effects.

However, there are a few noteworthy recent additions: Scientists are now better able to predict when the climate crisis will cause long-term droughts to worsen and hot waves to become more lethal. These predictions include heavier or more frequent rainstorms, hurricanes, and wildfires.

Over 500 heat-related deaths occurred in Maricopa County in 2023, the deadliest heat-related year on record. This summer alone, the Phoenix area burned through a record 31 consecutive days above 110 degrees.

A violent downpour that occurred in July flooded sections of Vermont to lethal levels. Then, in August, a swiftly spreading wildfire decimated Maui, and Florida’s Gulf Coast was battered by its second powerful hurricane in as many years.

It is expected that President Joe Biden will announce more than $6 billion in funding during his remarks on Tuesday to strengthen climate resilience by improving the United States’ electric grid, investing in water infrastructure upgrades, decreasing flood risk in communities, and promoting environmental justice.

According to White House senior climate adviser John Podesta, in order to “create a livable future for ourselves and our children,” the US needs “a transformation of the global economy on a size and scale that’s never occurred in human history.”

The federal government’s comprehensive climate report contains five important lessons.

It is simpler to identify the disasters that climate change has made worse.

With the help of the most recent report, scientists have made significant progress in the field of “attribution science,” demonstrating with greater certainty how climate change is influencing extreme weather phenomena such as heatwaves, droughts, hurricanes, and intense rainstorms.Hurricanes and wildfires are not caused by climate change, but it can increase their frequency or intensity.

For example, increased air and ocean temperatures cause storms to intensify more quickly and provide heavier rainfall when they make landfall. Furthermore, trees and vegetation can act as tinderboxes for wildfires, escalating them into megafires that spread out of control due to the hotter and drier weather brought on by climate change.

According to Hayhoe, the field of attribution has enabled us to make precise assertions, as it can identify specific regions of a city that are now more vulnerable to flooding as a result of climate change. “Over the past five years, there has been a significant advancement in the field of attribution, which really helps people make connections.”

Climate change is affecting all regions, although some more than others.

Biden administration officials and the report’s experts emphasised that no region is immune from climate change, and this summer’s harsh weather served as a terrible reminder of that fact.

A number of areas, including Texas, Florida, Louisiana, and California, are experiencing more intense storms and drastic fluctuations in precipitation.

Although certain landlocked states, such as those in the Appalachians like Kentucky and West Virginia, have seen catastrophic flooding from rainstorms, these states won’t need to adjust to rising sea levels.

In addition, states in the north are dealing with a rise in illnesses spread by ticks, less snowfall, and more intense downpours.

There isn’t a place that isn’t at risk, but there are some that are more or less at risk.That depends on how prepared (cities and states) are, as well as how often and how severe the weather and climate extremes you’re exposed to.

Climate change is having a severe negative economic impact.

According to the report, there is a growing frequency of climate-related economic shocks, as demonstrated by the new record set this year for the number of extreme weather-related disasters that cost at least $1 billion. Additionally, experts on disasters have spent the past year cautioning that the US is only now starting to feel the financial effects of the climate problem.

Rising costs for homeowners’ insurance are one way that climate hazards are affecting the housing market. A number of insurers have completely left high-risk states.

Food prices can skyrocket when stronger storms destroy some crops or when livestock die from excessive temperatures. Additionally, the researchers in the report discovered that in the Southwest, future temperatures that are higher could cause agricultural labourers to lose 25% of their physical work capacity between July and September.

Although not nearly quickly enough, the US is reducing pollution that warms the earth.

The US is seeing a decrease in planet-warming pollution, in contrast to China and India, the two other major polluters in the globe. However, the research notes that it is not occurring nearly quickly enough to meet the United States’ international climate pledges or stabilise the planet’s warming.

Between 2005 and 2019, the nation’s annual greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 12%, mostly due to the electrical industry switching from coal to renewable energy and methane gas, the latter of which is still a fossil fuel with a substantial impact on global warming.

Regarding the climate catastrophe, the decline is encouraging, but when you read the tiny print, the picture becomes murky.

Too much and not enough water are major issues in the United States.

The fragile future of water in the US is one of the report’s main conclusions; regions of the nation could experience either severe drought and water scarcity in the future or increased flooding and sea level rise.

Communities in the Southwest are especially vulnerable to drought and decreasing snowpack. Arizona State University climate scientist Dave White headed the report’s Southwest chapter, which discovered that the area had a considerable decrease in precipitation between 1991 and 2020 compared to the previous three decades.

According to White, the planet’s continued warming poses serious risks to the snowpack in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains and the Rockies, two regions that supply the West with essential freshwater.

Since freshwater is essential to the survival of the area’s cities, farms, and Native American tribes, White continued, it also has important effects on the region’s economy and agriculture.

“In this area, mountains serve as our natural reservoirs.” The way our infrastructure functions is severely impacted negatively by climate changes that affect the snowpack in the mountains. Simply put, it is imperative that we safeguard those resources.