In a time when the changing atmospheric chemistry is putting unprecedented pressures on our landscapes, the opportunities to witness and to respond to changes in ways that will help our other-specied kin to get through this bottleneck of change are practically boundless. To take advantage of those opportunities, all we have to do to start is to show up. Reports from the field will be more important than ever, and I can think of no more exciting and gratifying occupation than helping the rest of humanity to meet the challenges of climate change by providing those reports from the field as to what is happening.

He also looks at how climate is a human construct in concert with “long live climate!” Read his expansive and in-depth, yet very readable, discussion of what climate change means and can mean for those of us in the heartland. Climate Change Essay

Climate Change online resources

by Ken Lassman www.kawvalleyalmanac.com

Weather and climate basics
Weather is what happens in the atmosphere every day: clouds, rain, droughts, hurricanes, fair weather—all of it. Climate is weather over time: an cumulative abstraction created from weather events that occur in a given place, a region or over the entire earth. By collecting and analyzing statistically valid and physically relevant weather data over time, we can tease out subtle trends and better understand the complexities of what causes the weather. Measurable weather data include temperature, humidity, wind, precipitation, cloud cover, chemical composition and other atmospheric characteristics. 30 year averages are the most common climate averages used; by comparing 3-5 year weather averages against the previous 100 year averages, changing probabilities or “anomalies” can be detected, such as the increasing probability of more frequent and severe extreme events. Here are a couple of useful video overviews that help set the stage for the other resources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrPS2HiYVp8 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHgyOa70Q7Y

Evidence for climate change
There are many, many reliable web resources that review this information in a comprehensive, up-to-date matter. Here are some of my favorites:
http://climate.nasa.gov/ http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=8
http://www.climate.gov/ http://skepticalscience.com/argument.php
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators

Human and natural forcings of climate
The answer is very clear that humanity has changed the chemistry of the atmosphere and those changes are driving the current climate changes we are seeing, but that doesn’t mean that the sun, volcanoes, our orbit around the sun, cosmic rays and other factors don’t play a part. Here are some of my favorite resources to explain both human and more than human contributions to the climate.
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/ . And here’s the unequivocal “No” answer as to whether volcanoes emit more greenhouse gases than human activity does: http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vhp/gas_climate.html

Human emissions of carbon
Annual updates, country by country, economic sector by sector: http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/

CO2 and greenhouse gas amounts in the atmosphere
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/. Fascinating time lapse showing carbon composition over the past 800,000 years: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/history.html. 3D visualization of carbon emissions

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/eye-popping-view-of-co2-critical-step-for-carbon-cycle-science

The physical consequences for changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere and oceans:

arctic sea ice levels: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ combined global land and sea surface temps:
There are many graphs, datasets and animations available here; http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
ocean heat content: incl. graphs of various depths http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/ polar ice mass: WAY more complicated than you might think, with some parts of antarctic ice shrinking, other parts expanding for a whole bunch of reasons. To get a sense of how these pieces fit together: https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/ice_sheets.html Includes cumulative data for the extent of ice mass loss and how much they have contributed to the sea level rise–see the Merging Methods section for details.

glacier ice mass: Integrates satellite monitoring and on-the-ground calibration: http://wgms.ch/

sea level rise: Past, current and future graphs globally https://research.csiro.au/slrwavescoast/sea-level/

ocean acidification: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/OA+Observations+and+Data extreme weather events: The IPCC comprehensive overview of the issue: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/srex/. Famous James Hansen study that uses weighted dice analogy to increasing probability of extreme weather events: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/07/30/1205276109 and a discussion of the resulting controversy: http://www.skepticalscience.com/hansens-new-climate-dice-loaded-misunderstood.html

Here are some of the ecological consequences of climate changes
This seminal article is a good one to look at; over 5200 journal articles use it as a citation. If you copy the title and paste into Google Scholar search, you get a link to those 5200+ articles and can sort them by date: Parmesan, C. (2006). “Ecological and Evolutionary Responses to Recent Climate Change.”

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=5,24&sciodt=0,24&cites=8220195123175360683&scipsc=&q=&scisbd=1
Coral reefs: 1.5^o Celsius: 2/3 of the planet’s coral reefs are spared, but 2^o Celsius: most of the planet’s coral reefs are lost: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v3/n2/full/nclimate1674 Possible changes in Central Great Plains area: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400082.full and https://www.globalchange.gov/explore

Global efforts to adapt and good sources for initiative updates
Humans are part of the planet’s ecosystem and here’s how different countries are being affected/planning for mitigating/adapting: https://www.iied.org/climate-change and other news sources to keep current: http://www.climatecentral.org/

Mitigation efforts to minimize climate change
IPCC publications include the October 2018 Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C http://www.ipcc.ch/

While the Trump Administration has suspended the Clean Power Plan, many initiatives to continue to reduce emissions to meet the Paris Agreement target in the US continues on many other fronts, including:

http://www.globalcovenantofmayors.org/

http://climatemayors.org/

https://www.americaspledgeonclimate.com/

For Kansas, we have the privilege of having an excellent grassroots organization devoted to educating the public on a wide range of climate issues as they affect Kansans as well as the opportunities to make a difference: check out these folks and support them: http://climateandenergy.org/index.php

Carbon fee and dividend, energy efficiency and good news updates source

A grassroots, citizens’ based effort to pass legislation that will implement a carbon fee, refunded to taxpayers as the most efficient, market-driven method to reduce carbon emissions:

https://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-and-dividend/ . Energy efficiency is always the cheapest, most effective way to increase our energy supply: this is a great resource that evaluates state policies, initiatives and keeps track: http://aceee.org/. Renewable energy production: a good news source on all things concerning renewable energy: http://newenergynews.blogspot.com/

Adaptation to climate change

Changing insurance industry
http://www.climatewise.org.uk/global-insurer-statement/ and
http://www.munichre.com/en/group/focus/climate-change/index.html

Efforts to protect biodiversity, ecosystems, which is threatened worldwide by the changes in our climate:
https://www.cbd.int/climate/

Agricultural adaptation: some initiatives of note, including the newly created USDA regional Climate Hubs

https://www.climatehubs.oce.usda.gov/
http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/sectors/agriculture
http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/climate-change/index_en.htm

Local impacts and efforts to adapt/mitigate–In addition to the Climate and Energy Project (see link above), keep track of what’s happening locally by visiting these sites (for the Lawrence, KS area):

https://www.jayhawkaudubon.org/

http://kansas.sierraclub.org/

http://www.kawcouncil.com

http://www.grasslandheritage.org/

https://kansasruralcenter.org/

https://www.facebook.com/sustainabilityactionnetwork/

Free courses to go into more in-depth understanding of our climate, climate change, and the science behind it
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmxzubbVw6jXA7Ak08StYug
https://www.coursera.org/learn/global-warming

last update: 11/4/2018