What are the latest climate projections?

The IPCC sixth assessment report was just released. The graph here is from the summary for policymakers.  The 42 page summary could be used as part of a sustainability or QL type course as there are plenty of graphs.  Page 15 starts the discussion on the different scenarios, which is an opportunity to talk about modeling and assumptions. For a sense of the long term consequences:

In the longer term, sea level is committed to rise for centuries to millennia due to continuing deep ocean warming and ice sheet melt, and will remain elevated for thousands of years (high confidence). Over the next 2000 years, global mean sea level will rise by about 2 to 3 m if warming is limited to 1.5°C, 2 to 6 m if limited to 2°C and 19 to 22 m with 5°C of warming, and it will continue to rise over subsequent millennia (low confidence). Projections of multi-millennial global mean sea level rise are consistent with reconstructed levels during past warm climate periods: likely 5–10 m higher than today around 125,000 years ago, when global temperatures were very likely 0.5°C–1.5°C higher than 1850–1900; and very likely 5–25 m higher roughly 3 million years ago, when global temperatures were 2.5°C–4°C higher (medium confidence).

How dry is Arizona?

From the climate.gov article Western Drought 2021 Spotlight: Arizona by Tom Di Liberto (7/29/2021):

Looking back even farther by using a drought indicator known as the Standardized Precipitation Index, the current drought in Arizona is also the worst on record back to the late 1800s. Going back even farther than THAT by using tree rings across the Southwest as stand-ins for soil moisture, the current drought over the entire region is one of a handful of the worst droughts in the last 1200 years. Other especially bad droughts occurred in the late 1500s and late 1200s (known as the Great Drought). Basically, this is a long-winded way of saying the current drought in Arizona and the Southwest is bad no matter if you look back 10 years, 100 years, or 1,000 years.

The graph copied here shows that it has been 6 years since a wet year with 2020 precipitation the lowest since 1900. And, of course:

According to the Climate Science Special Report, temperatures across the Southwest have increased by 1.61 degrees Fahrenheit since the first half of the 20th century. These increases in temperature contribute to aridification in the Southwest by increasing evapotranspiration, lowering soil moisture, reducing snow cover and impacting snowmelt.

Looking to the future, temperatures in the Southwest are projected to increase by the end of the century by around 5 degrees Fahrenheit if carbon dioxide emissions follow a lower path and up to 9 degrees if emissions follow a much higher path. Increasing temperatures can make soils even drier, amplifying drought.

There are other graph in the article but no direct links to data. Still, there is good information and plenty of material for a QL course.

How much of the West is in drought?

Over 99% of the West has been in drought for the month of July and 4/6/2021 was the last time it was below 90%. Roughly 25% has been in exceptional drought since May. Over 60 million people (about 20% of the U.S. population) are estimated in the drought areas in the West. The definition of exceptional drought:

  • Exceptional and widespread crop/pasture losses

  • Shortages of water in reservoirs, streams, and wells creating water emergencies

The U.S. Drought Monitor has data for download including time series and GIS files.

How much has CO2 emissions increased?

The visual here is from the NASA feature How Much Carbon Dioxide Are We Emitting? by Matthew Conlen (7/15/2021) may help us all understand the change in CO2 emissions.

In 1900, almost 2 billion metric tons of CO2 were released due to fossil fuel usage. By 1960, that number had more than quadrupled to over 9 billion metric tons.

The latest data from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center shows that over 35 billion metric tons of CO2 were released in 2014. *

There is a link to CO2 data at the bottom of the article. If you’d like a graph this one is included on the page:

Is voting a right or a privilege?

The answer to the question is correlated with party affiliation as Pew reports in their article Wide partisan divide on whether voting is a fundamental right or a privilege with responsibilities by Vianney Gomez and Carroll Doherty (7/22/2021) as their chart here shows.

Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents overwhelmingly say voting is a fundamental right that should not be restricted in any way – 78% hold this view, while fewer than a quarter (21%) say it is a privilege. Two-thirds of Republicans and Republican leaners say voting is a privilege that can be limited if requirements are not met, compared with about half as many (32%) who say it is a fundamental right.

On another question we have this:

Nearly all Americans (94%) – including 95% of both Republicans and Democrats – say it is important that people who are legally qualified to vote are able to cast a ballot, with 82% saying it is very important.

This makes me wonder if there is a different interpretation to “can be limited.”  There are three other charts and links to the questions used and the methodology. All great for a stats course.

What is the connection between heat and electricity use?

From the eia article June heat wave in the Northwest United States resulted in more demand for electricity by Johnathan DeVilbiss and Mark Morey (7/21/2021):

heat wave in the Northwest United States in late June led to more regional demand for electricity. During periods of high temperatures, electricity demand increases as people turn up their air conditioners, dehumidifiers, fans, and other cooling equipment. Very high temperature events, like the one in June in the Northwest, tend to push electricity demand to very high levels.

Portland, Oregon: On Monday, June 28, the temperature at Portland International Airport reached an all-time record high of 115°F. At 5:00 p.m., the temperature was 114°F, and electricity demand for the Portland General Electric Balancing Authority for the hour ending at 5:00 p.m. was 4,471 megawatthours (MWh).

This provides as example of a feedback loop. At the planet warms we’ll use more electricity to keep us cool. If that electricity is generated by CO2 emitting sources we continue to warm the planet and then use even more electricity.

The article links to the hourly electric grid monitor where you can download data.

How Low is Lake Mead?

The Bureau of Reclamation posts the end of month elevation for Lake Mead dating back to 1935. I created the graph of minimum yearly end of month elevation starting in 1940 since Hoover Dam was only created in 1935. Here is the R code to create the graph including importing the data directly from the webpage. I’ll leave it as a project to normalize this based on the number of people the reservoir serves.

How hot was June 2021?

From NOAA’s Global Climate Report – June 2021:

The June 2021 global surface temperature was the fifth highest for June in the 142-year record at 0.88°C (1.58°F) above the 20th century average. Only Junes of 2015 (fourth warmest), 2016 (second warmest), 2019 (warmest), and 2020 (third warmest) were warmer and had a global temperature departure above +0.90°C (+1.62°F). Nine of the 10 warmest Junes have occurred since 2010.

But June seemed hot you say? Yup:

The global land-only surface temperature for June 2021 was the highest on record at 1.42°C (2.56°F) above average. This value surpassed the previous record set in 2019 by +0.11°C (+0.20°F). The ten warmest June global land-only surface temperatures have occurred since 2010. The unusually warm June global land-only surface temperature was mainly driven by the very warm Northern Hemisphere land, which also had its highest June temperature departure at +1.69°C (+3.04°F). The now second highest June temperature for the Northern Hemisphere occurred in 2012 (+1.51°C / +2.72°F).

Time series data is available at the link near the top of the page.

 

What is the Vegetative Health Index?

From the NOAA STAR Center for Satellite Applications and Research page:

Global and Regional Vegetation Health (VH) is a NOAA/NESDIS system estimating vegetation health, moisture condition, thermal condition and their products.

It contains Vegetation Health Indices (VHI) derived from the radiance observed by the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) onboard afternoon polar-orbiting satellites: the NOAA-7, 9, 11, 14, 16, 18 and 19 and VIIRS from Soumi-NPP satellite.

And

The VH products can be used as proxy data for monitoring vegetation health, drought, soil saturation, moisture and thermal conditions, fire risk, greenness of vegetation cover, vegetation fraction, leave area index, start/end of the growing season, crop and pasture productivity, teleconnection with ENSO, desertification, mosquito-borne diseases, invasive species, ecological resources, land degradation, etc.

The following indices and products are available:
Vegetation Health (VHI)
Vegetation Condition Index (VCI)
Temperature Condition Index (TCI)
Soil Saturation Index (SSI)
No noise Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (SMN)
No noise Brightness Temperature (SMT)
and more.

There is a page with maps (and links to shapefiles) and an interactive page with time series graphs for different states. The one for NY is copied here. It seems like there are some uses for stats courses tied to correlations with temperature (and you can add climate max/min to the graphs) and more. There is a page to download data (see left sidebar) but you’ll have to be able to handle netcdf files.

How hot was the Pacific Northwest?

Berkeley Earth summarizes the recent heatwave in the Pacific Northwest in the article The Pacific Northwest Heatwave in Context  (7/6/2021). The graph by Dr. Robert Rohde copied here is striking and really says all that needs to be said. This is a graph that everyone should have to study and understand. This was anything but a typical heatwave.

There are other graphs and links to dedicated data pages for Washington State, Oregon, Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, and Canada. On these pages there are more graphs and links to the data that created the graphs.