I’m in a NOAA briefing on climate services. The speaker is introducing a recent report, Global Climate Change Impacts in the USA. If you want a simple, straightforward guide that doesn’t just outline the science, but links it to recent real changes here at home (or rather “there” at home, since I’m “here” in Copenhagen), this would be a good one to read.

• In the northern Midwest, including Michigan, there has been a 31% increase in very heavy precipitation events, leading to floods. In the Northeast, that figure is 67%.
• Spruce beetles in Alaska now have two reproductive cycles each year instead of one due to warmer weather.
• In Texas, areas that now get 10-20 days a year over 100°F will get more than 120 days/year by the end of this century.

And check this out — Lake Michigan water level down 2 feet by 2050:

From the report:

“Climate-related changes are already observed in the United States and its coastal waters. These include increases in heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening growing seasons, lengthening ice-free seasons in the ocean and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, and alterations in river flows. These changes are projected to grow.”

Written by PAUL EDWARDS.