WIKIMEDIA, STEPHEN SLADE TIENA new climate assessment draft released on Friday (January 11) by a United States federal advisory committee affirms that climate change is affecting the nation now and will continue to intensify, Nature reported.
“Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present,” leaders of the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee wrote in a letter introducing their report.
Climate change has likely already doubled the risk of extreme heat events, the assessment concluded, and is associated with an increase in extreme rainfall and severe storms in many areas. This trend was recently exemplified as Hurricane Sandy generated a devastating storm surge that pounded the East Coast. "The storm's strength and resulting impact was certainly increased by the fact that the waters of the Atlantic Ocean near the coast were roughly 5 °F above normal,” the report read. The assessment’s release comes just days after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ...
