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May 21, 2014
Elected Officials are Human, Too
By John Bwarie, Founder, Stratiscope Having served as staff for over a decade for three L.A. City Councilmen, as well as L.A. Mayor James Hahn, I’ve been on the receiving end of countless requests for support, meetings, and action from concerned citizens and interest groups. In 2010, my world was turned upside down when I started working with USGS scientists to inform policymakers on how science can be used as …
May 14, 2014
4 maps on America’s climate and energy outlook: 2 that will worry you, 2 that will give you hope
Originally posted on the Opower blog On Tuesday, the White House released the most authoritative scientific report ever written about the current and future consequences of climate change in the United States. The findings of the report, known as the National Climate Assessment (NCA), are striking. Average temperatures in the United States have increased by 1.3 to 1.9°F since 1895, and most of that warming has occurred in the last …
May 13, 2014
EarthScope’s USArray – Inspiring the Next Generation of Seismologists with New Ways to Understand the Planet
By Andy Frassetto, Project Associate, Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) With funding from the National Science Foundation, IRIS operates EarthScope’s USArray. Its goal is to use the North American continent as a natural laboratory to study the structure and evolution of Earth. This observatory is a multi-purpose set of geophysical instruments, comprised of mostly seismometers, which have been operated across the continent since late 2004. The Transportable Array (TA) …
May 12, 2014
As West Antarctica melts, the urgency for climate change adaptation rises
By Lexi Shultz, Director of Public Affairs at the American Geophysical Union and Kat Compton, Public Affairs Intern As if the recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the National Climate Assessment (NCA) weren’t enough of a reminder of the ways in which human actions are changing our planet, new research published in the current edition of Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) presents evidence that part of …
May 9, 2014
Tornadoes and Climate Change: Challenges in Interpreting the Record and Looking Forward
By Harold E. Brooks, Senior Research Scientist, NOAA/National Severe Storms Laboratory With the release of the new National Climate Assessment, the scientific community has put forward our best understanding of the changes that have occurred and are expected to occur as the planet continues to warm. Noticeably, little is said about tornadoes in this document. There’s good reason for this absence. Despite a wide variety of speculation in the online …
May 8, 2014
Science Confirms (Again) What Cities Already Know: Climate Change is Happening Now
By Carolyn Berndt, Program Director for Sustainability, National League of Cities Originally posted on CitiesSpeak.org The continuing drought in the west and wildfires burning in the plains are real world examples—happening right now—of what scientists say is evidence of climate change. Remember the floods in Colorado last year and Hurricane Sandy the year before? Those too are indicative of the kinds of extreme weather events the U.S. will face in …
May 6, 2014
The Climate Conversation Needs Your Voice
By Lexi Shultz, Director of Public Affairs at the American Geophysical Union Today, the White House released the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s (USGCRP) third National Climate Assessment (NCA). This report, coming in at 1,300 pages and written by more than 300 authors (many of whom are American Geophysical Union members) is an impressive accounting of the many current and future effects of climate change across the country. The NCA …
April 23, 2014
Keep calm, carry on and prepare
Written by John Schelling, Washington State Emergency Management The invitation to contribute my perspective on tsunami risk reduction efforts to “The Bridge” arrived on my tablet as I sat in the Snohomish County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in Everett, Washington. There I was—working as part of the response and recovery effort to a major landslide (the Oso landslide, which occurred at 10:37 a.m. on March 22)–and presented with the question, …
April 4, 2014
Cutting back on refrigerants could drop greenhouse gas emissions
By Alexandra Branscombe Originally posted on AGU GeoSpace WASHINGTON, DC – Phasing down powerful climate-damaging greenhouse gases used in refrigerators and air conditioners could prevent the equivalent of up to three years of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions from being released into the atmosphere, according to a new study. Research accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, calculates the environmental impact of phasing down …
