U.S. experiencing the warmest spring of all time

According to a latest analysis from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center United States is currently experiencing its warmest spring (March-May) on record, with national average temperature being 57.1°F, 5.2°F above the 1901-2000 long-term average, overtaking the previous warmest spring (1910) by 2.0°F.

In fact, this May was the second warmest May on record, with the average national temperature being 64.3°F, surpassing the long-term average by 3.3°F.

Other interesting findings include:

Twenty-six states had May temperatures ranking among their ten warmest. Only Oregon and Washington had spring temperatures (March-May) near normal.

Midwest were wetter than average and the Northwest was the only area that hasn't experienced warmer than average temperatures.

Ongoing drought, combined with windy conditions, created ideal wildfire conditions across the Southwest, and led to largest wildfire on record for the state of New Mexico.

37.4 percent of the contiguous U.S. experienced drought conditions at the end of the May.

This year's spring had warmest March, third warmest April and second warmest May on record.

The June 2011-May 2012 period was the warmest 12-month period on record for the contiguous United States.

The more info with even more data can be found here http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2012/5.

Will U.S. corn survive climate change?

Corn still remains America's number one crop spreading around 80 million acres of land. Corn is also one of the U.S. top exported goods with approximately 20 percent of the total corn crop exported to other countries. The corn's primary use in United States is to feed livestock.

How will U.S. corn production cope with increased climate change impact still remains to be seen. The recent studies were anything but positive claiming that climate change will have devastating impact on U.S. corn production.

Researchers from Stanford and Purdue universities believe that U.S. farmers will soon be forced to move their corn fields north because of the increasing heat waves caused by increased temperatures.

They also claim that climate change's impact on corn price volatility will be far greater than the volatility caused by changing oil prices.

The worst news is that even if global temperature increase doesn't reach the internationally recognized target limit of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the temperature increase could still make damaging heat waves much more common over the U.S. corn belt.

Increasing heat waves will no doubt lead to low-yield years and this could lead to significant increase in food prices.

There are two possible solutions to this issue: either we'll have to do something effective against climate change or the science will have to find solution to significantly increase corn's heat tolerance.

Great lakes rapidly losing ice

The U.S. Great lakes are experiencing massive loss of winter ice cover. The recent study by American Meteorological Society says that the average amount of ice covering the Great Lakes has decreased 71 percent since 1973.

The scientists believe that this tremendous loss of ice cover is the result of cyclical climate patterns like El Niño and La Niña, changes in the Arctic Oscillation and broader climate change phenomenon.

The worst loss of ice cover occurred in lake Ontario that dropped by 88% while the largest of U.S. lakes - the lake Superior experienced an ice loss cover of 79%.

The scientists have calculated that only about 5 percent of the Great Lakes surface froze over this winter, which is the minimum amount since satellite photos were first taken from space.

Jia Wang, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration lab, warned that the rapid decline in ice cover will lead to faster wintertime evaporation, resulting in reduced water levels. This could also lead to increased and earlier algae blooms, which could lead to water pollution, and may accelerate erosion by exposing more shoreline to waves.

The current winter of 2011-12 wasn't included in the report but its mild temperatures will only serve to speed up the decline.

Climate change issue in US - Interesting observations

US Republican party is the only major party in the developed world that denies existence of climate change. Weren't they also the ones who said that smoking doesn't cause cancer?

50% of the new Congressmen deny the existence of manmade climate change. It looks like US is still pretty much ignorant to anything that isn't strongly connected with almighty dollar.

Cap and trade scheme that should have been the US answer to tackle climate change will likely remain just a fond memory of once existed optimism that US will actually do something about climate change issue.

The US is one of the few countries in the world where politicians seem to know lot more about climate, our environment, our planet in general than scientists do.

US, a global leader in international climate talks? Now, that's a laugh.

How much of US politicians have basic science literacy? It's certainly better not to answer to this question.

Why should US spend extra money to tackle climate change? Just because of catastrophic future full of floods, droughts, hurricanes diseases and hunger? Come on, give us a right reason.

Is US really living in 21th century when it comes to climate change issue? Even George Washington would look like progressive politician compared to some Republicans.

US climate change legislation - Nothing without EPA

Despite many promises and strong support from president Obama, US still failed to pass cap-and- trade legislation, as there is still not enough political will for such action, or as some others would say fossil fuels lobbies are still too powerful. The only somewhat good news came from climate negotiator Todd Stern who recently said that despite the failure of cap-and-trade legislation US won’t change its target for 2020 to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by approximately 17 percent.

If you follow what's happening with climate change legislation in United States then you already know that The House approved a bill last year to set limits on carbon emissions linked to climate change but this bill stalled in Senate. Though cap-and-trade legislation would be more than welcome passing this bill will take some time, and in the meantime Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) needs to step in, and use existing laws to at least regulate some sources of carbon pollution.

By the current looks of it, EPA will not be afraid to use these laws, and the EPA regulation planned for next year will set the U.S.’s first nationwide limits on greenhouse-gas pollution in the effort to curb global warming. This is a clear sign that EPA will continue pushing forward towards the adequate climate change legislation.

Many political analysts believe that the adequate domestic climate change legislation is the key to success to the international climate deal. Copenhagen was yet another big failure on international stage, mainly because US failed to give positive examples to other countries. Hopefully, this situation will soon improve.

How important is climate change issue to United States?

Many of you probably still remember how Obama during elections promised that climate change issue will be top priority for United States if he was to be elected as the new president of United States. He is now the president, and despite his visible efforts to give climate change issue more political importance lately it seems like climate change issue is more and more slipping on U.S. political agenda, and the worst part is that crucial international climate talks are only couple of weeks away. Some reports are even suggesting that climate deal has slipped so far down on U.S. political agenda that serious climate talks will have to wait until after the 2010 elections.

Climate change problem and United States

United States have not only responsibility as the world's most powerful nation to do everything what it takes to fight global warming and climate change, US also has moral duty to work on climate change problem solutions, after all US industry sector and excessive greenhouse gas emissions are mostly responsible for climate change, and though many eyes are looking at China, US emissions are still the world's highest per capita. So what will US do to make the difference?

New president that considers climate change problem as one of top priorities was definitely an important first step, especially when compared with his predecessor George Bush who during his eight years did everything in favor of industry and different oil lobbies, and really couldn't care less for environmental issues. Unlike Bush Obama looks like the "Chosen One", a real leader that will lead not only US but the whole world to climate change solutions. Hope is definitely there but current situation is also raising some doubts. Most of all in form of recession and global financial crisis.

Current economic situation in United States hasn't been this difficult for 80 years, since the Great depression, and US economy is really on its knees, with many big companies struggling and asking for aid, and millions of people losing their jobs. In such a surroundings it is difficult to focus only on climate change and environmental issues, and many environmentalists believe that once again economy will be more important, and how long awaited new international agreement won't happen as soon as many think it will. Barrack Obama has promised significant decrease in US greenhouse gas emissions, and how US will play major role in new international climate change agreement. But if economy continues with its downfall even further it will be very difficult to keep this promise, especially since there are many in Congress that believe how climate change is still not among top US priorities. History should be a great remainder here as in 1997 Bill Clinton signed Kyoto protocol that was later rejected by Senate. And in 1997 there was no such thing as global financial crisis so doubters have every reason to feel that things won't change this time either.

So what is the conclusion? To hope or not to hope? At this moment hope is all we are left with, and though we have learned so many times that politics have no problem in making the promises, unlike actually doing what they promised to do, we still believe that things will change, even despite the global financial crisis. Environmental issues are top priority that require urgent action - even politicians should have realized this by now. But have they really? We will soon see.

United States taking climate change problem seriously?

After so many years of waiting, and so much hope that the world's most powerful nation will realize seriousness of climate change, things are finally going into the right direction. And what is even better Unites States is using all of its diplomatic skills to convince China to join in what should result in the new improved version of Kyoto protocol, where two major carbon emitters China and U.S won't be excluded. Hillary Clinton in her visit to China has stated that climate change is central focus of her visit, and how United States will try to form a partnership with China to tackle global warming and climate change. So far so good, a dream come true many would say. But there would be also some problems on the way.

First of all the most important goal of new climate pact should be significant decrease in CO2 emissions. It will be very interesting to see how far are world's leading economies willing to go given the current global recession. What is bigger priority - world's fight against climate change or world's fight against global financial crisis? Barrack Obama said many times how his goal is to turn United States into low carbon economy by reducing carbon emissions but this will not be an easy task because United States is traditionally dependent on fossil fuels.

What the world needs is much more obligatory climate pact, not like Kyoto protocol which was nothing more than a good idea and lots of promises that never turn into reality. New climate pact needs to have short and mid-term lower emissions goals, with special emphasis on major emitters such as United States, China and Australia. World should really learn from Kyoto protocol mistakes, and make sure that new deal isn't as fragile as Kyoto protocol was. Can the world this time make it right? Well, given the current emission levels this could be our very last chance to make it right so we need to make it right this time.

Every nation should accept carbon emissions limits because if only some countries do this and other don't there won't be a big difference on global scale. This will definitely not be an easy task with developing countries like China and India because they achieved their economic boom mostly by using coal (cheap fossil fuel), and they are likely to be reluctant to accept large changes to their industries. But the whole world will have to make industrial sacrifice because this time too much is on stake, namely our planet and lives of our future generations.

Alaskan tundra reacts fast to climate change

Tundras are areas where the tree growth is prevented by low temperatures and short growing seasons. Tundras as very specific areas have wildlife completely different than any other area and present habitats for many unique species. Especially beautiful and unique is Alaskan tundra. However, climate change is having very alarming effect on Alaskan tundra as global warming trend threatens different ecosystems that live there. The rate of warming is simply too fast for Alaskan wildlife to fully adapt as many species simply can not cope with the current rate of this new evolution caused by global warming phenomenon.

According to US biologist that were studying condition in Alaskan tundra "the changes are all happening faster than the models had predicted". This of course means that emission of greenhouse gases isn't decreasing although politicians talk a lot about efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. Condition is not only alarming for Alaskan tundra but for the whole Arctic itself, and some models imply that within the next 50 years Arctic ocean will no longer have any summer ice and Arctic would be ice free by the summer of year 2040.

Alaskan tundra - Beautiful piece of nature

US CO2 emissions again increased in 2007

Carbon dioxide or CO2 is harmful greenhouse gas mainly responsible for global warming and climate change. And though all countries agree that we should cut down carbon dioxide emissions and put more emphasis on the renewable energy sector, reality is completely different. Preliminary government estimate showed that US CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels increased 1.6 percent in 2007, rising from 5,888 million in 2006 to 5,984 million metric tonnes in 2007.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) said that this growth of CO2 emissions include several factors : "weather conditions that increased the demand for heating and cooling services, and a higher carbon intensity of electricity supply". EIA also stated how since 1990, in less than 20 years CO2 emissions rose by 19,4 %, which is in average more than 1 % per year. Majority of CO2 emissions (about 80 %) comes from fossil fuels burning (coal, oil, natural gas).

Industrial carbon dioxide emissions luckily fell by 0.1 percent in 2007, but on the other hand emissions from the residential and commercial sectors increased by 4.4 percent and 4.3 percent, and transportation-related emissions, which account for about a third of total energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, increased by 0.1 percent in 2007. The largest single source of US carbon dioxide emissions is electric power generation, that represents about 40 percent of the total US CO2 emissions.

The current data shows that though there is lot of talk about turning to renewable energy sector and cutting down carbon dioxide emissions, little of this is actually happening in United States, and USA (together with China) convincingly leads the way in CO2 emissions. More CO2 emissions means more impact on climate change, and presents real danger to future of our planet. And as long as fossil fuels remain dominant on global scale this trend will continue. Renewable energy sector is still too weak, and fossil fuels are still dominant even despite recent boom in oil prices. There is only talk and few warnings, with little or no action. And USA that should be really (as the world's most powerful country) lead the way in cutting down CO2 emissions is doing completely opposite. Like global warming is only a great hoax. If only...

USA - Mainly responsible for global warming

Global warming and global climate change are now something we must get used to as there looks to be no real efforts to at least slow down this dangerous trend caused mainly by CO2 emissions as the result of dominant fossil fuels use. And major blame for this giant ecological problem goes to the United States.

In United States CO2 emission per capita is six times the global average citizen and more than 30 times that of a citizen in a developing country which is more than worrying information as the world's leading country is mainly responsible for global warming problem and leads in CO2 emission.

US contributes to almost 25 % of greenhouse gas emissions which is definitely too much considering US covers only 9 % of the world population. And though US citizens are becoming more aware of global warming problem, US government isn't doing all the right moves and still very much favors traditional fossil fuels which makes this difficult situation even worse.

And do you know where does the great irony lie? In the fact that people mostly affected with this global warming problem are the least responsible for its creation. This especially refers to the "black continent" where temperatures have become almost unbearable making already hard conditions even harder.

But soon this problem won't be somewhere else and will be making its big entrance to US once rising temperatures, sea levels and high hydrological extremes result in contaminated water supplies, newly evolving illnesses, extreme temperatures and flooding.

United States as world's leading country should have moral responsibility and put serious efforts in order to solve this problem and not making it even more difficult. But America is used to its traditional style that includes lots of cars, heavy industries and dominant fossil fuels use, and by the current looks of it, this situation won't change significantly in the upcoming years.

Our planet suffers and US has great moral responsibility to do something about it, and something fast. Economy this time shouldn't be before ecology because unless something is done with ecology there soon won't be economy. The time has come and we need to remove the almighty dollar from the throne and give our planet a decent chance to survive. It's our moral responsibility, but is there any moral still left in us?

Will we prevent this future?