Restored U.S. EPA Website Highlights Climate Change Risks

In the four years that Donald Trump was U.S. President climate change was a “Chinese hoax,” and science and data collection by the government’s agencies was hamstrung by an administration in total denial.

But since the inauguration of Joe Biden in January 2021, he has made fighting climate change his top priority and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other relevant government agencies have moved front and centre to highlight the evidence.

In its latest effort to get back on track, the EPA released its long-awaited report that represents an accumulation of climate data from dozens of government, academic, and non-profit sources. The report, which had been buried by the Trump administration for several years, indicates unprecedented levels of climate change including rising atmospheric temperatures, increased ocean acidity and sea-level rise, growing extreme weather events, increases in coastal and inland flooding, and rising incidents of drought and wildfires.

The new EPA website lists indicators that provide a more granular look including:

• greenhouse gas (GHG) emission levels rising for CO2, Methane (CH4), Nitrous Oxide (N2O), Halogenated fluorocarbons (HCFCs), Ozone (O₃), perfluorinated carbons (PFCs), and Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and subsequent radiative forcing causing temperatures to rise caused by the prolonged presence of these GHGs in the atmosphere.
• the rising air temperatures for all 50 states show increases in heat waves in U.S. cities as well as rising water temperatures on ocean coastline surfaces, and in lakes and rivers, as well as a drying out of the U.S. Southwest leading to prolonged drought conditions, and increasing wildfire frequency and intensity since 1983.
• the rise in mean global sea levels of 25.4 centimetres (10 inches) since 1880, with a local rise of 20.32 centimetres (8 inches) along the Eastern Seaboard has been contributing to an increasing number of flood days for Atlantic states, but also causing coastal land losses from Florida to the Mid-Atlantic States. Alaska, The Gulf of Mexico, and the lower 48 Pacific coast are also seeing flooding and land loss forcing some towns to move to higher ground.
• a declining level in Arctic sea ice coverage since 1980 with cumulative mass losses of ice from glaciers worldwide since 1950, later first freeze dates on U.S. lakes, and earlier ice breakups on Alaskan rivers.
• Changes in the range of insect-borne diseases such as West Nile Virus, Zika, Lyme and others.
• A rise in the number of growing days in the lower 48 since 1980 of 14 days.
• A change in marine species distribution brought on by warming ocean surface waters and generally through the water column causing poleward and depth migration to escape the heat, and find food sources that are also migrating.
• and finally a local phenomenon in Washington, D.C., changes to the date of the annual blooming of the cherry blossoms that are prominent in the capital.

We now know for a fact that 2020 was the second-warmest year on record, only surpassed by 2016. And we now know for a fact that heat waves which averaged two in the 1960s increased to six annually in the 2010 decade which just ended.

The EPA site is accompanied by other U.S. government agency sites equally unmasked by the Biden administration to becoming informative sources for studying climate change.

A redesigned National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate.gov site provides Americans with a global climate dashboard for reference.

And NASA‘s work on climate change is once more visible. Considering the space agency’s fleet of Earth-observation satellites, it can now reveal the detailed data it tracks about our planet’s vital signs. You can check out the scorecard which as of the writing of this post shows:

• CO2 levels at 416 parts per million and climbing
• Global temperatures up 1.16 Celsius (2.1 Fahrenheit) since 1880 and climbing.
• Arctic ice minimums showing a 13.1% decline per decade and on the increase.
• Ice sheet losses of 429 billion metric tons per year and increasing.
• And sea level rises of 3.3 millimetres (0.129 inches) per year and growing.

NASA provides a climate time machine to visualize the changes in all of these key metrics over time.

Back in January of this year, none of the above was anywhere evident. Now it is front and centre where it should be. Let’s hope that the policies and actions that follow will help bend the GHG curve downward so that Americans and the rest of the global community can collectively begin to heal our planet.