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The Great Barrier Reef murder: Climate change has wiped out half of the reef since 2016; and things are looking bad for this coming summer. The recent study "Global warming transforms coral reef assemblages" adds, direly:
"The 2015–2016 global bleaching event is a watershed for the Great Barrier Reef, and for many other severely affected reefs elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific Ocean. Furthermore, the Great Barrier Reef experienced severe bleaching again in early 2017, causing additional extensive damage. The most likely scenario, therefore, is that coral reefs throughout the tropics will continue to degrade over the current century until climate change stabilizes."
Photo: Aerial view of the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia.
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Wiped out island: Hurricane Walaka churned over the Pacific Ocean in early October as Category 5 storm, one of the strongest hurricanes to ever hit the region, and wiped this island most off the map [https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/hurricane-walaka-damage-hawaii-island-vanish-13330320.php]. Our warming climate is widely accepted to be increasing storm strength and sea levels. Not a good mix. Check out the next slide for the "after-hurricane" photo.
Photo: Satellite imagery shows East Island, Hawaii in May 2018. Click to the next slide to see what the island looks like after Hurricane Walaka.
lessWiped out island: Hurricane Walaka churned over the Pacific Ocean in early October as Category 5 storm, one of the strongest hurricanes to ever hit the region, and wiped this island most off the map
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Wiped out island 2: Satellite imagery shows what's left of East Island in October 2018 after Hurricane Walaka.
Wiped out island 2: Satellite imagery shows what's left of East Island in October 2018 after Hurricane Walaka.
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![Speaking of disappearing islands: A report for the State of Alaska states, "Shishmaref is a traditional Inupiat village with a fishing and subsistence lifestyle. The community is located on Sarichef Island, a barrier island approximately one quarter mile wide and about three miles long. ... The primary erosion hazards are wave and slough erosion, sea ice gouging, and slumping resulting from melting permafrost.
"According to the local hazard mitigation plan, 'the effects of climate change are expected to add to natural hazards including flooding in coastal areas. As sea level rises and the offshore ice pack retreats, more coastal flooding can be expected.' "
Photo: A grim reminder of the power of the fall season's storms that have pounded Shishmaref's shores, left unprotected by recent climate change, the soil erosion has not been slowed by the rocks and junk deposited by the villagers around this house. Photo: Gilles Mingasson/Getty Images]()
Speaking of disappearing islands: A report for the State of Alaska states, "Shishmaref is a traditional Inupiat village with a fishing and subsistence lifestyle. The community is located on Sarichef Island, a barrier island approximately one quarter mile wide and about three miles long. ... The primary erosion hazards are wave and slough erosion, sea ice gouging, and slumping resulting from melting permafrost.
"According to the local hazard mitigation plan, 'the effects of climate change are expected to add to natural hazards including flooding in coastal areas. As sea level rises and the offshore ice pack retreats, more coastal flooding can be expected.' "
Photo: A grim reminder of the power of the fall season's storms that have pounded Shishmaref's shores, left unprotected by recent climate change, the soil erosion has not been slowed by the rocks and junk deposited by the villagers around this house.
lessSpeaking of disappearing islands: A report for the State of Alaska states, "Shishmaref is a traditional Inupiat village with a fishing and subsistence lifestyle. The community is located on Sarichef Island, a
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This island too is in trouble: As the New Yorker wrote in June in its story Tangier, the Sinking Island in the Chesapeake: "A combination of storm-driven erosion and sea-level rise, which are both increasing as climate change advances, may soon swallow the island entirely."
The supporting research for the New Yorker story adds, "Climate change and associated sea level rise (SLR) are already impacting low-lying coastal areas, including islands, throughout the world. Many of these areas are inhabited, many will need to be abandoned in coming decades as SLR continues.
"We examine the evolution (1850-2013) of the last inhabited offshore island in Virginia waters of Chesapeake Bay USA, the Tangier Islands. ... Since 1850, 66.75% of the islands landmass has been lost. Under the mid-range SLR scenario, much of the remaining landmass is expected to be lost in the next 50 years and the Town will likely need to be abandoned."
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![Islands are sinking and eroding as glaciers melt away. Officials in Glacier National Park bemoan the lost of ... glaciers! The park's team says this in the overview of the problem, "It has been estimated that there were approximately 150 glaciers present in 1850, around the end of the Little Ice Age and most glaciers were still present in 1910 when the park was established. In 2015, measurements of glacier area indicate that there were 26 remaining glaciers larger than 25 acres, the size criteria used by USGS researchers to define a glacier."
The bigger picture? Not good.
"Glaciers are key and unique indicators of global warming and climate change. They are also an integral part of the culture, landscape, and environment, and an important component of the hydrological cycle in high mountain regions. In 2014, IPCC confirmed with a high degree of confidence that glaciers have continued to shrink almost worldwide and that these changes will affect water availability for the large populations situated downstream," the World Glacier Monitoring Service wrote in its Global Glacier Change Bulletin.
Photo: Large moraines at the base of Logan Glacier (2016) mark the extent of the glacier before it began its retreat around 1850 AD. Photo: John Scurlock/USGS / John Scurlock]()
Islands are sinking and eroding as glaciers melt away. Officials in Glacier National Park bemoan the lost of ... glaciers! The park's team says this in the overview of the problem, "It has been estimated that there were approximately 150 glaciers present in 1850, around the end of the Little Ice Age and most glaciers were still present in 1910 when the park was established. In 2015, measurements of glacier area indicate that there were 26 remaining glaciers larger than 25 acres, the size criteria used by USGS researchers to define a glacier."
The bigger picture? Not good.
"Glaciers are key and unique indicators of global warming and climate change. They are also an integral part of the culture, landscape, and environment, and an important component of the hydrological cycle in high mountain regions. In 2014, IPCC confirmed with a high degree of confidence that glaciers have continued to shrink almost worldwide and that these changes will affect water availability for the large populations situated downstream," the World Glacier Monitoring Service wrote in its Global Glacier Change Bulletin.
Photo: Large moraines at the base of Logan Glacier (2016) mark the extent of the glacier before it began its retreat around 1850 AD.
lessIslands are sinking and eroding as glaciers melt away. Officials in Glacier National Park bemoan the lost of ... glaciers! The park's team says this in the overview of the problem, "It has been estimated that
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Glaciers melting away 2: This NASA photo of the Kilimanjaro Glacier tells the same story.
Glaciers melting away 2: This NASA photo of the Kilimanjaro Glacier tells the same story.
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Island are in trouble, sure, makes sense. So, are coastal towns and cites. For instance, as The Guardian put it earlier this month, "Sinking Santa Cruz: climate change threatens famed California beach town."
The city of Santa Cruz summarized in its newest climate adaption plan: "Between 2060 and 2100, increased coastal wave damage, greater flooding depths and frequency and higher tides will threaten significant portions of current beach front properties and low lying areas, and will degrade the local beach community charm that currently exists. Protection and/or relocation of buildings and infrastructure from these risks will be costly, technically challenging."
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We'll miss those glaciers, and the bugs threatened by the loss of glaciers and snowpack. The study "Climate‐induced glacier and snow loss imperils alpine stream insects" says, "Climate warming is causing rapid loss of glaciers and snowpack in mountainous regions worldwide. These changes are predicted to negatively impact the habitats of many range‐restricted species, particularly endemic, mountaintop species dependent on the unique thermal and hydrologic conditions found only in glacier‐fed and snow melt‐driven alpine streams. ... highlighting the role of mountaintop aquatic invertebrates as sentinels of climate change in mid‐latitude regions."
Photo: View of the Zinal and the Moiry Glaciers in summer in the Val d'Anniviers, Switzerland.
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![In fact, we're wiping out bugs left and right. The Washington Post wrote in October, "In 2014, an international team of biologists estimated that, in the past 35 years, the abundance of invertebrates such as beetles and bees had decreased by 45 percent. In places where long-term insect data are available, mainly in Europe, insect numbers are plummeting. A study last year showed a 76 percent decrease in flying insects in the past few decades in German nature preserves."
One study the Post's story cites is "Climate-driven declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web." That study details that "arthropods, invertebrates including insects that have external skeletons, are declining at an alarming rate. ... Our analyses revealed synchronous declines in the lizards, frogs, and birds that eat arthropods. Over the past 30 years, (Puerto Rico’s Luquillo rainforest) temperatures have risen 2.0 °C, and our study indicates that climate warming is the driving force behind the collapse of the forest’s food web."
Photo: The common red soldier beetle (Rhagonycha fulva) descend of a sunflower leaf, Hungary" Photo: Zoltan Ritzel/Getty Images/Biosphoto]()
In fact, we're wiping out bugs left and right. The Washington Post wrote in October, "In 2014, an international team of biologists estimated that, in the past 35 years, the abundance of invertebrates such as beetles and bees had decreased by 45 percent. In places where long-term insect data are available, mainly in Europe, insect numbers are plummeting. A study last year showed a 76 percent decrease in flying insects in the past few decades in German nature preserves."
One study the Post's story cites is "Climate-driven declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web." That study details that "arthropods, invertebrates including insects that have external skeletons, are declining at an alarming rate. ... Our analyses revealed synchronous declines in the lizards, frogs, and birds that eat arthropods. Over the past 30 years, (Puerto Rico’s Luquillo rainforest) temperatures have risen 2.0 °C, and our study indicates that climate warming is the driving force behind the collapse of the forest’s food web."
Photo: The common red soldier beetle (Rhagonycha fulva) descend of a sunflower leaf, Hungary"
lessIn fact, we're wiping out bugs left and right. The Washington Post wrote in October, "In 2014, an international team of biologists estimated that, in the past 35 years, the abundance of invertebrates such as
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Lakes are going the way of bugs. Yes, lakes fluctuate like weather more than climate, but many are in danger of becoming like Lake Poopó, "once Bolivia’s second-largest lake and an important fishing resource for local communities," NASA explains.
Lake Poopó, the agency said, "has essentially dried up."
lessLakes are going the way of bugs. Yes, lakes fluctuate like weather more than climate, but many are in danger of becoming like Lake Poopó, "once Bolivia’s second-largest lake and an important fishing resource
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![Back to cold things: Permafrost. Like glaciers, permafrost is disappearing and that's causing and lot of problems: Splitting walls, collapsing houses, rollercoaster highways, collapsing coastlines, sinking cemeteries and the release of more CO2 and methane.
"Permafrost covers about 24 percent of the exposed landmass of the Northern Hemisphere—about 9 million square miles. It is found at high latitudes and high altitudes, mainly in Siberia, the Tibetan Plateau, Alaska, Northern Canada, Greenland, parts of Scandinavia and Russia," explains Columbia University's Earth Institute.
However, the institute explains, "the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, at a rate of temperature change that has not been observed in at least the last 2,000 years. ... (In 2016) permafrost temperatures in the Arctic were the warmest ever recorded. In Alaska, permafrost temperatures have warmed as much as 2˚C in the last few decades. ... with every 1˚C increase in temperature, 1.5 million square miles of permafrost could be lost through thawing."
Photo: Newtok homes are seen situation amongst ponds and tall grass on July 3, 2015 in Newtok, Alaska. Newtok is one of several remote Alaskan villages that is being forced to relocate due to warming tempertures which is causing the melting of permafrost, widening of rivers and the erosion of land and coastline. Photo: Andrew Burton/Getty Images]()
Back to cold things: Permafrost. Like glaciers, permafrost is disappearing and that's causing and lot of problems: Splitting walls, collapsing houses, rollercoaster highways, collapsing coastlines, sinking cemeteries and the release of more CO2 and methane.
"Permafrost covers about 24 percent of the exposed landmass of the Northern Hemisphere—about 9 million square miles. It is found at high latitudes and high altitudes, mainly in Siberia, the Tibetan Plateau, Alaska, Northern Canada, Greenland, parts of Scandinavia and Russia," explains Columbia University's Earth Institute.
However, the institute explains, "the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, at a rate of temperature change that has not been observed in at least the last 2,000 years. ... (In 2016) permafrost temperatures in the Arctic were the warmest ever recorded. In Alaska, permafrost temperatures have warmed as much as 2˚C in the last few decades. ... with every 1˚C increase in temperature, 1.5 million square miles of permafrost could be lost through thawing."
Photo: Newtok homes are seen situation amongst ponds and tall grass on July 3, 2015 in Newtok, Alaska. Newtok is one of several remote Alaskan villages that is being forced to relocate due to warming tempertures which is causing the melting of permafrost, widening of rivers and the erosion of land and coastline.
lessBack to cold things: Permafrost. Like glaciers, permafrost is disappearing and that's causing and lot of problems: Splitting walls, collapsing houses, rollercoaster highways, collapsing coastlines, sinking
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Many languages are and will be wiped off the cultural maps of the world. "Linguists predict in the next 100 years, half of the 7,000 languages currently spoken in the world will vanish," Grist summarized.
“It’s a very complex set of factors driving language change, and climate is definitely one of them,” Lenore Grenoble, a linguist at University of Chicago who specializes in Greenlandic, told Grist.
Photo: Young Greenlandic boys play by the water in Ilulissat West Greenland.
lessMany languages are and will be wiped off the cultural maps of the world. "Linguists predict in the next 100 years, half of the 7,000 languages currently spoken in the world will vanish," Grist summarized.
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Of course, plants and animals of all kinds are going extinct. The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species has a list of 872 species it has direct evidence of extinction, like Schomburgk's Deer (Rucervus schomburgki) pictured above. "More than 26,000 species are threatened with extinction. That is more than 27% of all assessed species," the group writes.
The Center for Biological Diversity averages: "Although extinction is a natural phenomenon, it occurs at a natural “background” rate of about one to five species per year. Scientists estimate we're now losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate, with literally dozens going extinct every day. It could be a scary future indeed, with as many as 30 to 50 percent of all species possibly heading toward extinction by mid-century."
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![Not only property is being wiped out by climate change, but lives and lots and lots of money, too.
The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction states: "... between 1998 and 2017, climate-related and geophysical disasters killed 1.3 million people and left a further 4.4 billion injured, homeless, displaced or in need of emergency assistance. While the majority of fatalities were due to geophysical events, mostly earthquakes and tsunamis, 91% of all disasters were caused by floods, storms, droughts, heatwaves and other extreme weather events.
"In 1998-2017, disaster-hit countries experienced direct economic losses valued at US$ 2,908 billion, of which climate-related disasters caused US$ 2,245 billion or 77% of the total. This is up from 68% (US$ 895 billion) of losses (US$ 1,313 billion) reported between 1978 and 1997. Overall, reported losses from extreme weather events rose by 151% between these two 20-year periods."
Fighting climate change is expensive, but not fighting it is deadly and expensive.
Photo: Paul Koziol (L) and his brother Tom search for salvageable items in the home of their aunt after it was destroyed by Hurricane Michael on October 19, 2018 in Mexico Beach, Florida. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images]()
Not only property is being wiped out by climate change, but lives and lots and lots of money, too.
The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction states: "... between 1998 and 2017, climate-related and geophysical disasters killed 1.3 million people and left a further 4.4 billion injured, homeless, displaced or in need of emergency assistance. While the majority of fatalities were due to geophysical events, mostly earthquakes and tsunamis, 91% of all disasters were caused by floods, storms, droughts, heatwaves and other extreme weather events.
"In 1998-2017, disaster-hit countries experienced direct economic losses valued at US$ 2,908 billion, of which climate-related disasters caused US$ 2,245 billion or 77% of the total. This is up from 68% (US$ 895 billion) of losses (US$ 1,313 billion) reported between 1978 and 1997. Overall, reported losses from extreme weather events rose by 151% between these two 20-year periods."
Fighting climate change is expensive, but not fighting it is deadly and expensive.
Photo: Paul Koziol (L) and his brother Tom search for salvageable items in the home of their aunt after it was destroyed by Hurricane Michael on October 19, 2018 in Mexico Beach, Florida.
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![Wiping out borders: Not everyone is going to just sit around in their climate-ravaged towns hoping for (more or less) rain. Think migration is controversial now! Check out what Scientific American reported Oct. 29: The controversial caravan of Central Americans "traveling to the southern U.S. border is a preview of what the United States and other rich countries can expect as global warming compounds pressures on fragile and poor states, according to security and immigration experts.
"Experts caution against simple explanations for the caravan—political instability, violence and economic scarcity are all factors—but say that climate change promises to make such mass migrations more common in the coming years."
Photo: Hundreds of Central American migrants wait for an empty truck to be transported to the next destination of the caravan on Oct. 30, 2018 in Niltepec, Mexico Photo: Cristopher Rogel Blanquet/Getty Images]()
Wiping out borders: Not everyone is going to just sit around in their climate-ravaged towns hoping for (more or less) rain. Think migration is controversial now! Check out what Scientific American reported Oct. 29: The controversial caravan of Central Americans "traveling to the southern U.S. border is a preview of what the United States and other rich countries can expect as global warming compounds pressures on fragile and poor states, according to security and immigration experts.
"Experts caution against simple explanations for the caravan—political instability, violence and economic scarcity are all factors—but say that climate change promises to make such mass migrations more common in the coming years."
Photo: Hundreds of Central American migrants wait for an empty truck to be transported to the next destination of the caravan on Oct. 30, 2018 in Niltepec, Mexico
lessWiping out borders: Not everyone is going to just sit around in their climate-ravaged towns hoping for (more or less) rain. Think migration is controversial now! Check out what Scientific American reported Oct.
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Intangibles are in danger, too. Take for instance our democracy. The Atlantic declares: "Major disasters and challenging long-term weather conditions are weakening local governments, increasing racial and class inequality, and reducing trust in government."
It's "a world in which major disasters weaken states and deepen conflicts, breaking safety nets and alliances alike. They predict the degradation of governance as economic outputs decrease, people are displaced, and global food resources falter."
lessIntangibles are in danger, too. Take for instance our democracy. The Atlantic declares: "Major disasters and challenging long-term weather conditions are weakening local governments, increasing racial and class
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Photo: Ullstein Bild/ullstein Bild Via Getty Images
The Great Barrier Reef murder: Climate change has wiped out half of the reef since 2016; and things are looking bad for this coming summer. The recent study "Global warming transforms coral reef assemblages" adds, direly:
"The 2015–2016 global bleaching event is a watershed for the Great Barrier Reef, and for many other severely affected reefs elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific Ocean. Furthermore, the Great Barrier Reef experienced severe bleaching again in early 2017, causing additional extensive damage. The most likely scenario, therefore, is that coral reefs throughout the tropics will continue to degrade over the current century until climate change stabilizes."
Photo: Aerial view of the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia.
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Humans are wiping these animals, places and things off the planet
One of the latest global assessments of things humans are wiping off the planet reports that us bipedal omnivores with smartphones have decimated global species populations by 60 percent in the past 40 years.
The World Wildlife Fund adds in its 2018 "Living Planet Report" released in the last week of October that our influence on the climate has also knocked down shallow water corals by 50 percent in 30 years and disappeared 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest.
"This report sounds a warning shot across our bow," Carter Roberts, president and CEO of WWF-US, said in a statement. "Natural systems essential to our survival—forests, oceans, and rivers—remain in decline. Wildlife around the world continue to dwindle. It reminds us we need to change course. It's time to balance our consumption with the needs of nature, and to protect the only planet that is our home."
Hey, when you're right, you're right.
To drive this point home, we've put together a gallery of some of the things humans have caused to either go extinct, be significantly reduced or otherwise messed up.
Check out the list in the gallery above.
And, no, things are not yet getting better in anyway on the global warming front. The human-caused forces changing Earth's climate and exacerbating many of the troubles listed above continue unabated. NOAA's most recent "Global Climate Report," covering 2018 through September, states:
"Warmer to much-warmer-than-average conditions engulfed much of the globe's surface during the first nine months of the year. Averaged as a whole, the January–September 2018 global land and ocean surface temperature was the fourth highest on record at 0.77°C (1.39°F) above average. ... Based on three simple scenarios, 2018 will likely end up among the five warmest years on record. Record warm temperatures were present across parts the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Gulf of Mexico, as well as across parts of North America, Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand."
What are the chances humans will pull off a miracle and keep global temperatures below the 2 degree celsius increase called the "tipping point" for life as we know it? Not good!
A study published in Nature's climate change research portal last summer by researchers in statistics and sociology at the University of Washington shows "only a 5 percent chance that Earth will warm 2 degrees or less by the end of this century. It shows a mere 1 percent chance that warming could be at or below 1.5 degrees, the target set by the 2016 Paris Agreement."
So that means ...
"Countries argued for the 1.5 C target because of the severe impacts on their livelihoods that would result from exceeding that threshold. Indeed, damages from heat extremes, drought, extreme weather and sea level rise will be much more severe if 2 C or higher temperature rise is allowed," co-author Dargan Frierson, a UW associate professor of atmospheric sciences, said in a news release.
"Our results show that an abrupt change of course is needed to achieve these goals."
The writing is on the wall ... the sky, the earth, the data and everywhere else but Washington, D.C., evidently.
Jake Ellison can be reached at jakeellisonjournalism@gmail.com. Follow Jake on Twitter at twitter.com/Jake_News.
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Photo: Ullstein Bild/ullstein Bild Via Getty Images![Wiped out island: Hurricane Walaka churned over the Pacific Ocean in early October as Category 5 storm, one of the strongest hurricanes to ever hit the region, and wiped this island most off the map [https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/hurricane-walaka-damage-hawaii-island-vanish-13330320.php]. Our warming climate is widely accepted to be increasing storm strength and sea levels. Not a good mix. Check out the next slide for the "after-hurricane" photo.
Photo: Satellite imagery shows East Island, Hawaii in May 2018. Click to the next slide to see what the island looks like after Hurricane Walaka. Photo: U.S. Fish And Wildlife Service](https://s.hdnux.com/photos/76/37/33/16381636/3/920x920.jpg)
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