The 2011 Plan - Presidential Climate Action Project

Figure 5: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has produced this preliminary mapof significant climate-related events worldwide in 2009. To see the map in more readable size, go tohttp://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2009/13.In December 2010, the Northeastern United States was hit by a “snowcalypse”, the second in 11 months. Twentyinches of snow fell in New York City, paralyzing the city’s transportation system, blocking emergency crews, andcausing flight cancellations that stranded passengers across the country for days. The record snowfalls wereconsistent with the predictions of climate scientists that global warming will result in extreme precipitation eventsyear-round. 83As 2010 ended, a large part of Australia was inundated by a flood of “biblical proportions”. Waters climbed 30feet above flood level and forced 200,000 people to evacuate their homes. Following a week of record-breakingrain, snow, and flooding, massive mudslides hit areas around Los Angeles just before Christmas in 2010, swallowinghomes and highways and forcing hundreds to evacuate. Officials in the cash-strapped state estimated the damagesat more than $60 million.Among other natural disasters related to extreme precipitation in 2010, 12,000 people were evacuated and 35,000acres of farmland destroyed by flooding in the Balkans. Thirty-four people were killed and 100,000 people evacuatedafter torrential rainfall caused flooding and landslides in VenezuelaWILDFIRES: An outbreak of wildfires in 2009 killed more than 200 people in Australia during the worst droughtthat country had experienced in a century. In Greece, wildfires engulfed large areas of rural land around Athensin July 2010, a sequel to the fires that killed more than 50 people in 2007 and reached“biblical proportions” in August 2009.In August 2010, more than 550 fires raged out of control across Russia’s steppes, bogs and forests, creating a1,000-mile-wide smoke plume that could be seen from space. The fires killed more than 50 people and destroyedthousands of homes. In Haifa, 41 people killed and 17,000 evacuated as a result of fire.83 See Joe Romm’s discussion of the link between large snowfalls and climate change at http://climateprogress.org/2010/12/13/more-snow-storms-warm-yearsclimate-change.Leading climatologists also have concluded that the record cold experienced in parts of the United States this winter is within expected temperaturevariations and does not invalidate observed evidence or projected impacts of climate change.41