Climate Change within the Story
This page presents quotes from the story, in chronological order, that are directly tied to expected climate change risks and impacts. For each quote, I explain the context of the expected risk/impact and the projections attached to it.
NOTE: The story portrayed a business as usual scenario that would very likely result in average global warming between 3° and 4° Celsius by 2100 above the recommended limit of 2° Celsius that was agreed upon in the Paris Climate Agreement.
For a full list of sources used for this project and website, click here.
“These days, intense hurricanes are nothing extraordinary… instead because these once one in fifty or one in a hundred storms are now nothing more unusual than a drought in California, a snowless winter in Michigan, or a flooded beach in Florida.”
Credit: NOAA
Credit: EPA
Credit: NOAA
Climate change issues addressed: hurricane intensity, droughts, increased temperatures, sea-level rise
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This quote is a loaded one but let’s dive in.
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Let’s start with hurricane intensity. Hurricanes gain their energy from warm waters and favorable atmospheric conditions. With increasing sea temperatures, it becomes more favorable for them to intensify and become very destructive. According to the IPCC and NOAA, it is likely that hurricane intensity will increase by about 1 to 10% under warming of 2° Celsius. Presently, we are projected to go over 2° Celsius by 2100 indicating that hurricane intensity can increase even more than projected. The important thing to consider with intensity is that even a 1% increase implies an even larger increase in the destructive capability of the hurricane. Additionally, it is likely that the proportion of category 4 and 5 hurricanes will increase meaning that storms like Katrina, Harvey, and Maria might become more common. However, while hurricane intensity is expected to increase, the average number of tropical storms and hurricanes (~10 named storms occur each year in the Atlantic) is not expected to increase.
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Now, let’s move on to droughts. The National Climate Assessment stated that, under a business as usual scenario with no changes to greenhouse gas emissions and water use, long-lasting hydrological droughts will become increasingly possible as time goes on. Annual rainfall has already decreased in the West, Southwest, and Southeast regions of the country and is expected to continue decreasing. However, it remains uncertain as to if actual drought frequency and intensity will change as time move on. On the other hand, heat waves have become more frequent in the United States and are expected to increase in frequency and intensity in the future.
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Going off the last point, the average annual temperature across the continental United States has already increased by 1.2° F and it is expected to increase by a further 2.5° F. Total warming may even exceed 5° F by 2070 if we continue on our current track of greenhouse gas emissions and lack of action. This is expected to result in earlier spring melts and reduced snow with increased rain in fall and winter for the western United States.
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Finally, sea-level rise. Over the last 100 years, the average global sea level has risen by 8 inches with at least 3 of those inches being added in the last 25 years. Relative to the start of this century, it is projected that sea level will increase by up to 1 foot by 2050 and by up to 4.5 feet by 2100. All US coastlines are projected to be severely affected by this with high tide floods increasing in depth, frequency, and extent over the remainder of the century. If you want to see more about the potential extent of sea-level rise for different scenarios, you can check out this interactive map from NOAA.
Climate change issues addressed: biodiversity loss and displacement
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As the temperatures warm, both on land and sea, many species are expected to shift their area of distribution in search of conditions they are more used to. In the water, highly mobile tropical fish (e.g. Mahi) are expected to move in search of cooler waters either by moving poleward or into deeper waters. This is expected to disrupt interactions between species as tropical species move temperate waters. As these species move into new regions, they are expected to interfere with local species’ survivorship. This can be particularly harming fisheries as the species they depend on might become displaced elsewhere and replaced with unwanted species. If you would like to learn more about this, read this article published by Yale Environment 360.
“Mahi were as common in these waters as rats in a New York City sewer; the water has turned so warm that most of these fish have moved north like birds in the summer”
Credit: NOAA
Sea level had risen by about a foot over the last 40 years, causing many of the mangroves in La Parguera to disappear. Without any space for mangroves to move farther inland, sea level had caught up to them and drowned them out.
Credit: IUCN
Climate change issues addressed: Sea level rise and mangrove loss
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While sea-level rise is poised to affect many coastal cities and communities, it is also poised to change the natural landscape. For mangroves, sea-level rise presents a major threat as mangroves are sensitive to changes in flooding intensity and frequency. With rising sea levels, mangrove forests are expected to flood deeper and more frequently which eventually can cause them to drown out as mangroves cannot live past a certain depth. However, mangroves are capable of building sediment up to elevate themselves, but they can only do so if there is enough floating sediment in the water. Additionally, they can move farther inland provided there is suitable space for them to do so, but with many mangrove forests areas surrounded by human settlements, that can prove very difficult. In the context of the story, La Parguera in Puerto Rico is a highly touristic area that is surrounded by a large area of mangrove forests/keys where there is not much suitable space for mangroves to escape the dangers of sea-level rise.
Climate change issues addressed: hurricane rainfall and traversal speed
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Back to hurricanes again. Another thing that was not mentioned above regarding climate change and hurricanes is the amount of rainfall they’ll bring. Hurricanes are characterized by strong winds, but they can also bring massive amounts of rain to an area. As the temperatures continue to rise along the tropics, the amount of moisture the air can hold will also increase. This increased moisture is expected to increase rainfall rates within hurricanes to increase by 10-15% by the time the average global temperature has warmed by 2° Celsius.
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Additionally, it has been observed that, as the climate has warmed, hurricanes have been slowing down. Dr. James Kossin from NOAA has said that, since 1900, hurricanes have slowed down by about 17%. Additionally, they are expected to continue slowing down as a warmer atmosphere slows down the winds pushing these storms along. Hurricanes Harvey, Florence, and Dorian are examples of storms that lingered in areas as they made landfall causing catastrophic damages. If you want to learn more, listen to Dr. Kossin's 3-minute conversation with NPR (you can find the transcript here).
“‘It’s also reduced its traversal speed to a few knots so it’s definitely going to be a sitter…' La Parguera is about to become the site of another brutal smack of torrential rain and wind. Now, this, is reality.”
Credit: Erich Schlegel/Getty Images
"The vibrant coral reefs that fueled the tourism."
Climate change issues addressed: coral reef bleaching/loss
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Corals and coral reefs are some of the most at-risk organisms and habitats, respectively, from climate change. Coral reefs, as habitats, support an immense amount of biodiversity while also providing valuable services to people in the form of fisheries and tourism. Coral reefs are already degrading rapidly due to recurrent bleaching reducing survivorship of coral reefs. The average time between bleaching events is decreasing as temperatures and CO2 rise in oceans and it is expected it will continue decreasing in the decades to come. If you would like to learn more about coral reef bleaching, watch the video and click here.
Climate change issues addressed: climate change mitigation technology
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While limiting climate change impacts will require a deep reduction in emissions and strongly slowing down average global warming, there has also been work done on climate mitigation technologies. The main one involved in the story is that of carbon capture plants meant to capture and sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This technology is one that is currently being researched and worked on. However, that technology is still in its early stages resulting in high costs and energy use making it inefficient to use on a wide enough scale.
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The other technologies mentioned are also being researched as potential strategies to slow down climate change. Cloud seeding is a technology where aerosols are injected into the air to induce cloud formation that prevents further solar radiation from making its way to Earth’s surface. The third technology mentioned in the story, “de-acidification”, is meant as a way to reduce CO2 in the oceans. That one was completely made up. At the moment, there are no working technologies to directly reduce CO2 in the oceans and stop ocean acidification. Some of the best strategies at the moment include growing sea plants, such as kelp, to slow down the effects of ocean acidification.
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What’s important when talking about these technologies is that most are still either in the early stages of development and remain highly controversial. Additionally, none of these strategies are meant as a fix for climate change, but instead as complementary strategies to the necessary changes. In the context of the story, the world relied on the use of these technologies without taking any action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and switch to cleaner forms of energy thus they weren’t able to stop the drastic impacts of climate change. If you want to learn more about climate change mitigation technologies, you can read this page by National Geographic and this article by UCS.
“‘Did that mean trying to engineer ways to stop climate change? What did you work on, the carbon capture plants, cloud seeding, de-acidification technologies?’”
Credit: Rita Erven/Kiel-Earth-Institute
“The technology was supposed to bring CO2 levels back down to the levels they were at when Kike was a kid… But people kept pumping the air so much that the technology could only keep CO2 concentrations at their already high levels… People saw a machine that could take carbon out of the air and thought they never had to worry about this issue as if it hadn’t severely affected people’s lives up to that point.”
Credit: Shaw Nielsen/NRDC
Climate change issues addressed: lack of action
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Finally, climate change is nothing new. It’s been proposed as a potential issue as far back as 1896 and the IPCC was created over 30 years ago in 1988. We have had much time to start implementing suitable strategies to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and slow down climate change. However, this has been slowed and, at times, stopped by industry influences on political systems, lack of media coverage, and public doubt pushed by groups interested in the use of fossil fuels. By now, it is unlikely that we will avoid all impacts of climate change, but there is still time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and decrease the use of fossil fuels to reduce the severity of those impacts. While we might not be unscathed by 2100, we still hold agency on what our future may become. If you want to understand how you can personally contribute to climate change mitigation, click here.