Scientific Assessment Captures Effects of a Changing Climate on Extreme Weather Events in North America

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research today released a scientific assessment that provides the first comprehensive analysis of observed and projected changes in weather and climate extremes in North America and U.S. territories. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change previously evaluated extreme weather and climate events on a global basis in this same context. However, there has not been a specific assessment across North America prior to this report.

Among the major findings reported in this assessment are that droughts, heavy downpours, excessive heat, and intense hurricanes are likely to become more commonplace as humans continue to increase the atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

The report is based on scientific evidence that a warming world will be accompanied by changes in the intensity, duration, frequency, and geographic extent of weather and climate extremes.

"This report addresses one of the most frequently asked questions about global warming: what will happen to weather and climate extremes? This synthesis and assessment product examines this question across North America and concludes that we are now witnessing and will increasingly experience more extreme weather and climate events," said report co-chair Tom Karl, Ph.D., director of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

High resolution (Credit: NOAA)

"We will continue to see some of the biggest impacts of global warming coming from changes in weather and climate extremes,” said report co-chair Gerry Meehl, Ph.D., of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "This report focuses for the first time on changes of extremes specifically over North America."

The full CCSP 3.3 report, Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate, and a summary FAQ brochure are available online.

Global warming of the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced increases in heat-trapping gases, according to the report. Many types of extreme weather and climate event changes have been observed during this time period and continued changes are projected for this century. Specific future projections include:

• Abnormally hot days and nights, along with heat waves, are very likely to become more common. Cold nights are very likely to become less common.
• Sea ice extent is expected to continue to decrease and may even disappear in the Arctic Ocean in summer in coming decades.
• Precipitation, on average, is likely to be less frequent but more intense.
• Droughts are likely to become more frequent and severe in some regions.
• Hurricanes will likely have increased precipitation and wind.
• The strongest cold-season storms in the Atlantic and Pacific are likely to produce stronger winds and higher extreme wave heights.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for transportation, and by providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal and marine resources.

NOAA plays a key role in the Climate Change Science Program, which is responsible for coordinating and integrating climate research, observations, decision support, and communications of 13 federal departments and agencies.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research investigates climate, weather, and other topics related to the atmosphere. It is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and managed by a nonprofit consortium of universities, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

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Why Oil Prices Skyrocketed

With the cost of crude oil surging to record highs, a heated battle of blame is in full swing, with a lineup of suspects that includes the oil industry, Congress, commodity speculators, environmentalists and developing countries in Asia.

Meanwhile, predictions that we've reached a peak in oil production or will very soon — dismissed only a few years ago as being alarmist and without merit — are receiving more serious consideration.

The problem is, nobody really knows how much oil is down there. The only thing that's certain: Dead organisms produced a limited amount of oil long ago, and eventually there won't be enough to sustain the current rate of consumption.

Further complicating matters, global consumption is spiking. An average of 86 million barrels of oil are guzzled per day across the globe, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, up from 74 million barrels 10 years ago. World demand for oil is expected to increase by 37 percent to a staggering 118 million barrels per day by 2030, the agency estimates. Assuming, that is, there's enough to go around.

Peak oil?

Peak oil, followed by a permanent decline in global oil production, is a "reasonable hypothesis," according to David Goodstein, a physics professor at Caltech and author of "Out of Gas"(W.W. Norton, 2004).

"If we've reached the peak, then that's it," Goodstein said this week, echoing a March 2007 report by the U.S. General Accountability Office speculating that oil resources would begin to dwindle sometime between now and 2040. "I think you can invest as much as you want in new exploration and it won't improve matters."

A study last year by a Swedish researcher predicted oil production will peak sometime between this year and 2018.

Other analysts, however, say that we've barely explored our energy potential, much less run the risk of being tapped out completely.

"New field discoveries are only about 25 percent of the source of most of the reserve additions of oil," said William Fisher, a geologist at the University of Texas at Austin. "About 70 percent of it comes from oil through increased recovery out of existing fields. Around the world, up to this existing point, we have already discovered about 7 trillion barrels of oil in the ground."

Increasing the current rate of recovery from 35 to 45 percent, said Fisher, could yield an even greater surplus of petroleum. "Ten percent of 7 trillion barrels is a lot of oil," he said. "But peak-oil advocates just concentrate on new discoveries and put that aside."

Supply and demand

By Fisher's reckoning, rising oil prices are more likely due to an old-fashioned case of supply and demand — as well as the faltering U.S. dollar.

"We've just had a red-hot increase in demand in the emerging economies of Asia, particularly China and India," he said. "The other contributor is the weakening value of the dollar compared with the Euro, since oil is priced and sold in dollars."

A third offender: commodity speculation. "When you see a commodity like oil that will vary by 2 to 3 percent of its value in a day's time, you suspect that there's some speculation that's going on," Fisher said. "And I'm not saying it's a nasty word — people speculate in margins all the time — but that would, in my view, have some secondary role."

Still, the growing demands of a fuel-hungry planet obscures a different, self-imposed problem, said David Cole, chairman of the non-profit Center for Automotive Research.

"We have failed to develop our resources due to the inability of Congress to permit drilling in high-probability petroleum regions," he said, arguing that the United States has had an "absurd energy policy" for years.

"The only thing Congress has done over the years is promote the development of corn ethanol, which doesn't make any sense because it has very low energy potential," Cole said. "I think our broad energy capability is still very substantial, but we really need to bridge the gap between our existing resources and alternative technologies, including cellulosic biofuels and lithium batteries."

Another looming issue is the sizable chunk of change that is being spent on foreign oil each year.

"We're basically sending billions of dollars to people in the world we're not very comfortable with, because of our own inability to develop our own resources," Cole said.

Fisher agreed: "If you're forever growing and you're that much of an importer of a commodity, you don't get a whole lot to say about pricing," he said. "We can scream and yell all we want to, but we're at the mercy of the market."

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"Uncontacted" Amazon Tribe Actually Known for Decades

Recent photos of an uncontacted tribe firing arrows at a plane briefly made these Amazon Indians the world's least understood media darlings.

Contrary to many news stories, the isolated group has actually been monitored from a distance for decades, past and current Brazilian government officials say.

No one, however, is known to have had a face-to-face meeting with the nomadic tribe, which lives along the Peru-Brazil border. And no one knows how much, if anything, these rain forest people know about the outside world.

The tribe—whose name remains unknown—was first discovered by outsiders around 1910, according to José Carlos Meirelles, an official with Brazil's Indian-protection agency (FUNAI).

It was Meirelles who released the photos on May 29 through the indigenous-rights advocacy group Survival International.

Meirelles said he made the photos public to prove the group exists. Activist and former FUNAI president Sydney Possuelo agreed that—amid development and doubt over the existence of such tribes—it was necessary to publish them.

Taken in May, the photos became a sensation and spurred debate over how best to protect isolated tribes. Many indigenous-rights advocates see such groups as under threat from oil, gas, and logging interests that covet in the Indians' resource-rich homelands.

Despite such apparent threats, the recently photographed group's population has nearly doubled in the last twenty years, Meirelles added.

A few things are known about the enigmatic people, Meirelles said.

They have shaved foreheads but long hair. They plant cotton—or perhaps find it growing in the jungle—and spin it into cloth for skirts.

For the men, the women make cotton belts and headbands. They also make hammocks that are strung below huts covered by thick, thatched-palm roofs. "They are agriculturalists," Meirelles said. "They have big fields, and they grow cassava, maize, almonds, pumpkin, and various types of potato, papaw, yams, and banana."

Possuelo, the former FUNAI president, said the tribe probably fishes and hunts large piglike animals called tapir (see photo).

But both Possuelo and Meirelles said the tribe could have taboos against certain foods, making it impossible to describe their diet with exactitude.

Hard to Photograph

Along with the nomadic tribe, there are three sedentary groups living in the same vast region, Meirelles said. Each group lives at least 150 kilometers (93 miles) from its nearest neighbors.

The nomadic tribe was especially hard to photograph, Meirelles said.

"When they hear the noise of the plane, they hide in the forest, leaving their communities empty," Meirelles said.

"It seems that something very bad, related to an airplane, happened to them. … I think maybe bombs were thrown at them, or they were shot at," he said.

Keeping a Distant Watch

In 1988 FUNAI surveyed the tribe's region from the air, and Brazilian government scouts have carried out ground expeditions near the edges of the group's territory to demarcate their lands.

Since 1989 Brazil has operated "protection post" on the region's Envira River. There, six state officials keep a careful, protective, and appropriately distant watch, patrolling daily to keep developers from encroaching on the land, Meirelles said.

"To protect these people—after years of doing expeditions on the ground—we managed to determine the territory of these Indians and to demarcate two indigenous territories. And a third is due to be demarcated this year," he said in an email.

The two existing territories—the Alto Tarauacá Indigenous Territory and the Riozinho do Alto Envira Indigenous Territory—together cover about 2,400 square miles (6,250 square

kilometers).

Denials

Not everyone is jumping on the uncontacted-tribe bandwagon, especially at a time when indigenous peoples' lands are highly sought after for their natural resources.

In Peru—which is facing illegal logging and heavy oil and gas development in once pristine Amazon regions—top officials have publicly suggested that uncontacted people don't exist.

Similar doubts can be heard in Brazil, ex-FUNAI president Possuelo said.

"Here some people have tried to suggest that we have brought in indigenous groups from other places to claim there are people living in isolation," Possuelo said in a telephone interview.

Current FUNAI official Meirelles objected to suggestions that the group in the recent photos had arrived in Brazil only recently.

"This is not true. They've always lived on the Brazilian side," he said.

"The people coming from Peru are other Indians, from another tribe. Their haircuts and homes are different."

"I Don't Want to Know Any More"

Robert L. Carneiro is an anthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History. In an earlier interview with National Geographic News, he said that the bamboo belts and headbands apparently worn by the men in the photos make him think the people could be belong to the Aruak tribe, which he studied in 1960 and 1961.

Possuelo, former head of FUNAI, said it's possible the group in the photos are Aruak. But, he added, they could be from other tribes in the area.

"The point is that, because we've never contacted them, we just don't know anything about them," he said. "So anything anyone says about them has to be treated as speculation."

Meirelles tries to keep a distance while defending the uncontacted tribe.

"I don't want to know any more about these peoples," he said. "We just want to protect them."