The Henry Waxman and Edward Markey Report

How much time do you really think we have?

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/09/25/907371/markeywaxman-report-carbon-pollution-creating-a-cocktail-of-heat-and-extreme-weather/

Extreme temperatures

• July was the hottest month ever recorded in the continental U.S.  Some areas were 8 degrees warmer than average, with the average temperature in the lower 48 states at 77.6 degrees Fahrenheit, 3.3 degrees above the 20^th century average.
• Spring 2012 saw the warmest march, third-warmest April and second-warmest May in history, and was approximately 5.2 degrees Fahrenheit above average overall.
• Through late June 2011, daily record highs were outnumbering daily record lows by 9-to-1.

Drought

• As of September, 64 percent of the continental U.S. is experiencing drought, with August and September 2012 comparable to the worst months of the 1930s Dust Bowl.
• By the beginning of August, more than half the counties in the U.S. had been designated disaster zones because of drought.
• As of August, 51 percent of corn and 38 percent of soybeans grown in the U.S. were rated as poor or very poor by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Some states’ corn fared worse – Indiana had 70 percent of its corn rated as poor or very poor, and Missouri had 84 percent.

Wildfires

• This fire season 8.6 million acres – roughly the size of Connecticut and New Jersey combined – have burned in the U.S., with fires still burning in parts of the West.
• Wildfires in Colorado have killed six people, destroyed 600 homes and caused about $500 million in property damage.
• There has been nearly a four-fold increase in large wildfires in the West in recent decades, with fires burning longer and more intensely and wildfire seasons lasting longer.

Storms

• Tropical Storm Debby caused Florida to have its wettest June on record. The storm killed at least seven people and also damaged more than 7,500 homes and businesses.
• In July, the “derecho” storm system killed at least 23 people and left more than 3.7 million people without power.
• In August, Hurricane Isaac caused storm surges of up to 15 feet in some places and contributed to Louisiana and Mississippi experiencing their second-wettest August on record and to Florida experiencing its wettest summer on record.

Extreme water levels and water temperatures

• In July, water in the Great Lakes reached temperatures of 60 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit – more than 10 degrees warmer than the same time last year.
• In August, water temperatures of up to 97 degrees and low water levels caused tens of thousands of fish to die in Midwestern lakes and rivers.
• Low water levels in the Mississippi watershed have caused some barge companies to reduce their loads by 25 percent and have caused harbor closures in Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas and Mississippi.