Climate Scientists Worry About The Costs Of Sea Level Rise

The Guardian - John Abraham

New research addresses the economic costs of damages associated with sea level riseThe remnants of the Jet Star roller coaster is pictured in the ocean, almost five months after Superstorm Sandy, in Seaside Heights, New Jersey March 21, 2013. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/REUTERS

As humans add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, it not only warms the planet, but also raises the oceans. Ocean waters are rising for a number of reasons including thermal expansion of water (as water warms, it expands to a larger volume), as well as ice melt which then flows as liquid into the ocean. My next post will cover four recent studies that quantify how much ocean levels will rise in the future. However, here I will focus on the economic costs of rising seas.
A paper was just published by Drs. Boettle, Rybski and Kropp that dealt with this question. The authors of this study note that if you are concerned about societal and economic costs, the rate of sea rise isn't the entire story. Much of the damage is caused by extreme events that are superimposed on a rising ocean. Damage is highly nonlinear with sea rise.
To explain this, let's think about flooding. Consider a river that has a dike system capable of confining a rise of water up to six feet. Such a system would have little or no economic/societal damage for "floods" up to six feet, but just one more foot of water rise would put the waters over the dike and could cause significant losses. So what really matters is, do events overshoot some level that commences damage?
How does this relate to climate change? Well as we warm the planet we are raising the baseline level of water from which extremes happen. Second, we are making some extreme weather events more likely. To measure the changes to extreme events in the future, the authors use a statistical method to estimate economic losses from coastal flooding. Using Copenhagen and other locations as test cases, they found that economic losses double when water rises only 11 cm. They also find that the costs rise faster than sea level rise itself. So, if we expect a linear increase in sea level over the next century, we should anticipate costs that increase more rapidly.
The authors also look at what are called "tail events" of storm surges. These are unusual events that can cause a large fraction of losses. Superstorm Sandy is an example; the storm surge from that event was very extreme and cause more loss than the combination of many smaller storm surge events.
I asked the authors why this study is important. They told me,

While there is considerable progress in the understanding and projections of future sea level rise, there is little understanding about the damage costs from coastal floods which are expected to intensify with sea level rise. Most work focuses on case studies and there was no general understanding. Due to limited funds for adaptation it is very valuable to have a transferable and comparable approach for any coastal region.

I also asked how this work was novel and different from prior research.

For the first time we derive general relations on how damage from coastal floods increases with sea level rise and on how the damage decreases with the height of hypothetical protection measures such as sea walls. The results are based on mathematical proofs exploring extreme value statistics and are of universal validity. We conclude that the expected annual damage always, i.e. for an arbitrary case study, increases faster than the sea level itself.
Additionally, despite growing awareness of sea level rise, knowledge about the economic consequences in the form of damage costs is still very limited. A concise estimation, however, is essential in order to perform a reliable cost-benefit analysis regarding potential adaptation measures.
Our paper presents an entirely new view of the assessment of sea level rise impacts. Within a stochastic framework we provide for the first time universal expressions to describe the behavior of future damages, as well as their variability, for a varying mean sea level. Furthermore, an accurate characterization of the damage-reducing effect of coastal protection is included. All results are derived analytically and are confirmed by real-world examples (as shown in the study e.g. by two examples, however we applied the methodology already to more than 100 cities in Europe. This is, however, content of a subsequent paper).
We prove that sea level rise leads to an increase in coastal flood damages following one of three possible patterns. Additionally, the uncertainty of the estimations is analyzed in terms of the standard deviation quantifying the enormous variability of annual damages due to the stochasticity of flood events. The generality and simplicity of our findings facilitate an easy incorporation into integrated assessment models in the context of climate impact research.
Our work is ground-breaking since it bridges the gap between several fields of research and provides a full picture of the interplay between sea level rise, extreme events and the corresponding economic impacts. The manuscript addresses climate change, natural hazard and coastal research scientist.
The research was performed in the broader context of a European funded research framework, namely RAMSES, which is coordinated by Dr. Kroppf.

This work is important for a few reasons. First, we need tools to better understand what a future world will look like in a changed climate. We also need to make decisions to allocate resources toward adaption or mitigation. But how do we make decisions unless we have good information about costs and consequence? This study helps get us to an informed state.

Links

• Earth is warming 50x faster than when it comes out of an ice age
• Fossil fuel funded report denies the expert global warming consensus
• Republicans' favorite climate chart has some serious problems

Food Scarcity Caused By Climate Change Could Cause 500,000 Deaths By 2050, Study Suggests

Washington Post - Chelsea Harvey

Vegetables, including broccoli, white onions and carrots, are displayed for sale on a fruit and vegetable stall at a market in Guildford, U.K., on Friday, Dec. 14, 2012. Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

The effects of climate change on food production around the world could lead to more than 500,000 deaths by the year 2050, according to a grim new study. Climate-related impacts on agriculture could lead to an overall global decline in food availability, the research suggests, forcing people to eat fewer fruits and vegetables and less meat. And the public health impacts of these changes could be severe.
Climate experts have long predicted severe consequences for global food security if serious steps are not taken to mitigate climate change. Rising temperatures, more frequent droughts and more severe weather events are expected to cause agriculture in certain areas to suffer, all while the global population — and its demand for food — continues to skyrocket.
So there’s been a great interest in recent years in using models to predict the ways climate change will affect agriculture under various scenarios and what those effects might mean for future human societies. In the new study, which was published Wednesday in the journal The Lancet, a group of scientists from the U.K. took their research a step further.
They decided to take a look at not only how climate-induced changes in agricultural production will affect human food consumption, but also how these dietary changes might influence human mortality. It’s known that diet is connected with human health in many intimate ways, and poor diet has been linked with a number of serious diseases, including diabetes and heart disease.
The researchers, led by Marco Springmann of Oxford University’s Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, used an agricultural model to simulate the effects of future climate change on global food production and consumption. They assumed a severe climate change scenario, one in which global air temperature by 2050 is about two degrees higher than it was in the time period between 1986 and 2005. They then used a health model to predict the way these changes in food production and consumption would affect human health. They compared all of these effects to a reference scenario, which assumes a future with no climate change.
If no climate change were to occur, the model predicted that global food availability would actually increase by 10.3 percent by the year 2050. But under the effects of climate change, it’s a different story, and the model predicted that global food availability would be 3.2 percent lower than was predicted in the scenario with no climate change. Specifically, it found that people would eat 4 percent less fruit and vegetables and 0.7 percent less meat.
These dietary changes translate into hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths. If there were no climate change, the health model found that the projected future increases in global food availability would actually save nearly 2 million lives in 2050 compared with conditions in 2010. But the model predicted that the effects of climate change will reduce the number of lives saved by about 28 percent — this translates into about 529,000 deaths that would not have occurred if there were no climate change.
The food-related deaths would be caused by two major factors: people not getting the right type of nutrition, and people simply being underweight. The majority of all the predicted deaths were found to be caused by the nutrition factors, mostly by people being forced to eat fewer fruits and vegetables. However, the effects were somewhat variable in different regions of the world.
The fruit and vegetable-related deaths, for instance, were most prevalent in high-income countries, as well as low- or middle-income countries in the Western Pacific, Europe and Eastern Mediterranean. Deaths related to weight — in other words, insufficient calorie intake — were a bigger risk factor in Africa and Southeast Asia. Overall, the most climate-related deaths were seen in the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia — particularly in China and India.
It’s worth noting that a few countries were predicted to have climate-related decreases in deaths, related to a lower caloric intake. The changes in food availability and consumption were predicted to reduce obesity in some places — a condition also linked with disease and an increased risk of mortality. Regions where lives were actually saved included Central and South America and parts of Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. But these saved lives were far outnumbered by the amount of extra deaths caused by climate change.
“The results of this study indicate that even quite modest reductions in per-person food availability could lead to changes in the energy content and composition of diets that are associated with substantial negative health implications,” the authors write in the paper. It’s a sobering look at just a single facet of the climate change dilemma. Of course, the impacts of climate change are expected to cause human deaths in a variety of other ways as well. The increased risk of infectious disease, natural disasters, forced migration and civil unrest are just a few examples.
But as far as food security goes, the paper does raise the need for more targeted public health programs in various parts of the world that can start preparing for the potential dietary impacts of a warming climate. “Strengthening of public health programmes aimed at preventing and treating diet and weight-related risk factors could be a suitable climate change adaptation strategy with a goal of reducing climate-related health effects,” the authors write, noting that such interventions should be tailored by region to account for the specific challenges that different parts of the world are expected to face.
In the meantime, climate mitigation efforts could prevent thousands of deaths. The researchers found that by applying a moderate climate change scenario, instead of a severe one, the number of climate related deaths fell by about 30 percent. And in a scenario that assumed highly stringent mitigation efforts, the number of deaths fell by more than 70 percent.
So the public health impact of serious mitigation efforts is clear. And in a comment published in The Lancet alongside the new study, Alistair Woodward of the University of Auckland argues that future research should look at even more long-term effects to really drive the point home.
“Restriction of our view of the consequences of climate change to what might happen in the next 30–40 years is understandable in terms of conventional concerns with data quality and model stability,” he noted, “but might underestimate the size of future risks, and therefore undervalue present actions needed to mitigate and adapt.”
He also pointed out that issues with data caused some small nations, such as the highly climate-vulnerable Pacific Island states, to be left out of the study. This means we still don’t have a complete picture of how individual nations throughout the world might suffer the effects of climate change.
And, of course, there are many questions that the study simply did not have the scope to address. Those include issues related to the ways climate change will directly affect fisheries and livestock or the nutritional quality of produce, as well as the ways that some climate mitigation practices — culling livestock to cut down on methane emissions, for instance — could also affect global food security.
Combining research of different types can help address the many interrelated questions related to climate change, its environmental impacts and their implications for human health. For now, at the very least, the new study serves as a stark reminder that taking climate change seriously is no longer a luxury, but a matter of life and death for thousands of people around the world.

Regional Climate Change and National Responsibilities

Huffington Post - Dr. James Hansen

Nick Shepherd via Getty Images

Global warming of about 1°F (0.6°C) over the past several decades now "loads the climate dice." Fig. 1 updates the "bell curve" analysis of our 2012 paper¹ for Northern Hemisphere land, which showed that extreme hot summers now occur noticeably more often than they did 50 years ago. Our new paper² shows that there are strong regional variations in this bell curve shift, and that the largest effects occur in nations least responsible for causing climate change.
In the United States the bell curve shift is just over one standard deviation in summer and less than half a standard deviation in winter (Fig. 2). Measured in units of °F (or °C) the warming is similar in summer and winter in the U.S., but the practical implication of Fig. 2 is that the public in the U.S. should notice that summers are becoming hotter but is less likely to notice the change in winter. Summers cooler than the average 1951-1980 summer still occur, but only ~19% of the time. Extreme summer heat, defined as 3 standard deviations or more warmer than 1951-1980 average, which almost never occurred 50 years ago, now occur with frequency about 7%.
Warming in Europe (see paper) is modestly larger than in the U.S. In China (Fig. 2) warming is now almost 1½ standard deviations in summer and one standard deviation in winter, a climate change that should be noticeable to people old enough to remember the climate of 50 years ago. Bell curve shifts in India (see paper) are slightly larger than in China.
In the Mediterranean and Middle East the bell curve shift in summer is almost 2½ standard deviations (Fig. 2). Every summer is now warmer than average 1951-1980 climate, and the period with "summer" climate is now considerably longer. Given that summers were already very hot in this region, the change affects livability and productivity as noted below. Bell curve shifts in the tropics, including central Africa (see paper) and Southeast Asia (Fig. 2), which also was already quite hot, are about two standard deviations and occur all year round.

Fig. 1. Frequency of occurrence of local temperature anomalies (relative to 1951-80 mean) divided by local standard deviation (horizontal axis) for Northern Hemisphere land. Upper row is for summer (Jun-Jul-Aug) and lower row is winter (Dec-Jan-Feb). Further discussion in our 2012 and 2016 papers.

Fig. 2. Frequency of occurrence of local temperature anomalies (relative to 1951-80 mean) divided by local standard deviation (horizontal axis) for land areas shown on map. Area under each curve is unity. Numbers above map are percent of globe covered by the selected region. "Shift" refers to the dashed curve fit to 2005-2015 data and are relative to the base period.

The tropics and the Middle East in summer are in danger of becoming practically uninhabitable by the end of the century if business-as-usual fossil fuel emissions continue, because wet bulb temperature could approach the level at which the human body is unable to cool itself under even well-ventilated outdoor conditions.³ Lesser warming still makes life more difficult and reduces productivity in these regions, because temperatures are approaching the limit of human tolerance and both agricultural and construction work are mainly outdoor activities. Middle latitude countries have a near optimum average temperature for work productivity, while warmer countries such as Indonesia, India and Nigeria are on a steep slope with rapidly declining productivity as temperature rises (see Fig. 2 of Burke et al.⁴, 2015).
Warming and climate effects are not uniform within the regions that we illustrate. In the U.S., e.g., warming is largest in the Southwest, consistent with expected amplified warming in dry subtropical regions.⁵ Similarly summer warming is amplified in the Mediterranean and Middle East region, where at minimum it intensifies drought conditions such as those of Syria in recent years, if not being a principal cause of the drought.⁶
Increasing temperature seems to have a significant effect on interpersonal violence and human conflict, as indicated by a body of empirical evidence in a rapidly expanding area of scientific study. In an assembly of 60 quantitative studies⁷ covering all major world regions, it is found that interpersonal violence increases by 4% and intergroup conflict by 14% for each standard deviation increase of temperature. Such findings do not constitute natural laws, but they provide a useful empirical estimate of impacts of temperature change.

Fig. 3. Cumulative fossil fuel CO2 emissions by national source (a) and per capita (b). Results for additional individual nations are available at www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/CO2Emissions/.

Human health is affected by higher temperature via impacts on heat waves, drought, fires, floods and storms, and indirectly by ecological disruptions brought on by climate change including shifting patterns of disease (see Chapter 11 of IPCC, 2014, and references therein). Vector-borne diseases, usually involving infections transmitted by blood-sucking mosquitoes or ticks, can spread to higher latitudes and greater altitudes as global warming increases.
National responsibilities for global warming can be assigned because fossil fuel CO2 is the main cause of long-term warming. Deforestation and agricultural activities contribute to airborne CO2, but restoration of soil and biosphere carbon is possible via improved agricultural and forestry practices and, indeed that is required if climate is to be stabilized. In contrast, fossil fuel carbon will not be removed from the climate system for millennia.⁸ Other trace gases contribute to climate change, but CO2 causes 80% of the increase of greenhouse gas climate forcing in the past two decades⁹ and much of the other 20% is related to fossil fuel mining or fossil fuel use.
Climate change is accurately proportional to cumulative CO2 emissions (Fig. 3a). The U.S. and Europe are each responsible for more than a quarter of cumulative emissions, China for about 10% and India 3%. The disparity between developed and developing country emissions is even greater with consumption-based accounting of emissions.¹⁰ Even without consumption-based accounting, the per capita emissions of the U.S. and Europe are at least an order of magnitude greater than most developing countries.
There is thus a striking incongruity between locations of largest climate change and responsibility for fossil fuel emissions. Largest bell curve shifts are in tropical rainforest, Southeast Asia, the Sahara and Sahel, where fossil fuel emissions are very small. Climate change is also large in the Middle East, where emissions are large and rapidly growing, with several nations having higher per capita emissions than the United States (see paper).

Discussion
We conclude that continued business-as-usual fossil fuel emissions will begin to make low latitudes inhospitable. If accompanied by multi-meter sea level rise,¹¹ resulting forced migration and economic disruption could be devastating.
Even global warming as small as 2°C, sometimes called a safe guardrail, may have large effects. Bell curve shifts shown for 2005-2015 result from global warming of ~0.6°C relative to 1951-80. Thus 2°C warming relative to pre-industrial (1.7°C relative to 1951-1980) will result in bell curve shifts and climate impacts about three times greater than those that have occurred already. Global warming of 2°C is expected to cause sea level rise of several meters,¹² leading to inference that the potential sea level rise this century is dangerous.¹³
The overall message that climate science delivers to society, policymakers, and the public alike is this: we have a global emergency. Fossil fuel CO2 emissions should be reduced as rapidly as practical. We argue that country-by-country goals, the approach of the 21st Conference of the Parties cannot lead to rapid phasedown of fossil fuel emissions, as long as fossil fuels are allowed to be the cheapest energy. It will be necessary to include a carbon fee that allows the external costs of fossil fuels to be incorporated in their price. Border duties on products from countries without a carbon fee, would lead to most nations adopting a carbon fee.
In view of the disparity between developed country and developing country emissions, there is a recognized obligation of assistance from developed countries. Developing countries have strong leverage to achieve that assistance, because their cooperation in improved agricultural and forestry practices is needed to store more carbon in the soil and biosphere and to limit trace gas emissions. In addition, international cooperation in generating more affordable carbon-free energies is needed, because otherwise economic development in many nations will continue to be based on fossil fuels, despite pollution and climate impacts.

Notes:
1. Hansen, J., Sato, M. and Ruedy, R.: Perception of climate change, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 109, 14726-14734, 2012.
2. Hansen J. and Sato M.: Regional climate change and national responsibilities, Environ. Res. Lett. (in press).
3. Sherwood, S.C. and Huber, M.: An adaptability limit to climate change due to heat stress, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 107, 9552-9555, 2010.
4. Burke, M, Hsiang, S.M. and Miguel, E.: Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production, Nature 527, 235-239, 2015.
5. Cook, K.H. and Vizy, E.K.: Detection and analysis of an amplified warming of the Sahara, J. Clim. 28, 6560-6580, 2015.
6. Kelley, C.P., Mohtadi, S., Cane, M.A., Seager, R. and Kushnir, Y.: Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 112, 3241-3246, 2015.
7. Hsiang, S.M., Burke, M. and Miguel, E.: Quantifying the influence of climate on human conflict, Science 341, doi:10.1126/science.1235367
8. Archer, D.: Fate of fossil fuel CO2 in geologic time, J. Geophys. Res. 110, C09S05, 2005.
9. Hansen, J., Kharecha, P. and Sato, M.: Climate forcing growth rates: doubling down on our Faustian bargain, Environ. Res. Lett. 8, 011006, 2013.
10. Peters, G.P.: From production-based to consumption-based national emissions inventories, Ecolog. Econ. 65, 13-23, 2008.
11. Hansen, J., et al.: Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: Evidence form paleoclimate data, climate modeling and modern observations that 2°C global warming is dangerous, arXiv:1602.01393
12. Dutton, A., Carlson, A.E., Long, A.J., Milne, G.A., Clark, P.U., DeConto, R., Horton, B.P., Rahmstorf, S., and Raymo, M.E.: Sea-level rise due to polar ice-sheet mass loss during past warm periods, Science, 349, doi:10.1126/science.aaa4019, 2015
13. Davenport, C.: Nations Approve Landmark Climate Accord in Paris, New York Times, 12 December, 2015.

The Silent Killer: Climate Change and the Health Impacts of Extreme Heat

Climate Council - Elizabeth Hanna  |  Lesley Hughes

More needs to be done to prepare Australia's health and community sectors to cope with the pressures from more frequent and severe heatwaves, our new report has found.
The Silent Killer: Climate Change and the Health Impacts of Extreme Heat found that although many states have taken significant steps to upgrade their heat and health warning systems since the deadly heatwaves of 2009, strategies vary considerably from state to state and focus primarily on reactive rather than long-term planning.

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KEY FINDINGS

1. Climate change is a serious health threat for many Australians.

• Heatwaves are a silent killer. Major heatwaves have caused more deaths since 1890 than bushfires, cyclones, earthquakes, floods and severe storms combined.
• Climate change is driving longer, hotter and more intense heatwaves in Australia. Since 1960, the number of record hot days in Australia has doubled and heatwaves have become longer, hotter and more intense.
• Australia's mortality data indicate that over the past four decades there has been a steady increase in the number of deaths in summer, compared to those in winter suggesting that climate change may already be affecting mortality rates.

2. As extreme heat events worsen, the risk of adverse human health impacts is increasing.

• Without substantial action to tackle climate change and cope with a more extreme climate, heatwaves could cause hundreds of additional deaths annually in Australia by 2050.
• Australia must take urgent steps to improve the preparedness of the health sector and the long-term resilience of communities to minimise the impacts of worsening extreme heat.

3. Heatwaves can put intense pressure on health services.

• Extreme heat increases the risk of heat illness and can also exacerbate pre-existing illnesses such as heart and kidney conditions. Children, the elderly, the disabled and outdoor workers are among those most at risk.
• Heatwaves have been shown to dramatically affect patient presentations. During the heatwave in southeastAustralia in January/February 2009, emergency call-outs jumped by 46%; cases involving heat-related illness jumped 34-fold; and cardiac arrests almost tripled in Victoria. In total, 374 excess deaths were recorded, a 62% increase on the previous year.

4. While the health sector has made significant steps in improving resilience to heatwave events, more needs to be done.

• Several states now have comprehensive heat and health plans and a number have adopted early warning systems, but strategies vary considerably among jurisdictions, with some less prepared than others.
• Approaches also focus primarily on immediate reactive capacity, rather than incorporating exposure reduction strategies to build the long-term resilience of communities to cope with worsening heat.
• Adopting national standards or requirements for heatwave response plans would be one approach for further addressing these challenges.

5. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions rapidly and deeply is the best way to protect Australians from worsening extreme heat events.

• Limiting heatwaves requires urgent and deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.
• Importantly there must be a rapid transition from fossil fuel based energy systems to renewable energy.

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Links

• Is the Zika outbreak linked to climate change?
• All the top climate scientists in the world have something to tell you

3,000-Year Sea Level Study Called A Major Advance

NASA - Pat Brennan, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

This first-of-its-kind study shows that sea level is rising "like gangbusters."

A wave breaks on a Hawaiian beach. Sea levels driven higher by global climate change account for two thirds of coastal flooding days in the United States since 1950, a new analysis shows. Image credit: Michele Reynolds, USGS

A newly published analysis of the sea level record spanning three millennia represents a major leap forward in climate science, says Dr. Josh Willis, an ocean, ice and climate researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who was not involved in the study.

..the rate of globally-averaged sea level (GSL) rise during the 20^th century was significantly higher than at any time in the past 2,800 years.

The first-of-its-kind study, published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on Feb. 22, applied a sophisticated statistical analysis to local relative sea-level reconstructions from around the globe. Using published proxy measurements for 24 locations that relied mainly on marine organisms, the study's authors found that the rate of globally-averaged sea level (GSL) rise during the 20^th century was significantly higher than at any time in the past 2,800 years. The researchers also found that if human influence on climate were removed from the record, global sea level either would have risen far more slowly or even fallen slightly.
"With this record we can definitively say that modern sea level rise is caused by global warming," said Willis, project scientist for the recently launched Jason-3 satellite that measures sea-surface height. "That's something we kind of already knew, but this paper puts the nail in the coffin."
Willis also praised a second analysis by a research group, Climate Central, released the same day and based on the first study's findings. It ascribes two thirds of coastal flooding in the United States since 1950 to human-caused sea level rise.
"A 100-year flood in San Francisco now happens every 10 years," Willis said. "That is global warming, and that is undeniable."
The analysis that made these conclusions possible was based on extremely accurate records of regional sea level changes. Many of the published studies the authors drew from included coastal marine organisms that live only in a narrow range of tidal elevations; their presence is a reliable indicator of specific sea-surface heights.
"There are lots of records that go back thousands of years," Willis said. "But usually you don't have as good an accuracy as these guys got."
The research team that performed the analysis, led by Robert E. Kopp of Rutgers University, supplemented their global database of regional relative sea-level reconstructions with 66 tide gauge records, one going as far back as 1700. The authors found that GSL barely rose  (0.1 ± 0.1 millimeters per year, essentially zero) between 0–700 CE, was nearly stable between 700 and 1000, and fell by 0.2 ± 0.2 millimeters per year between 1000–1400 CE, a period of global air cooling by ∼0.2 °C. They noted a strong acceleration that began in the 19th century and yielded a 20th century rise of 13.8±1.5 centimeters, which is faster than during any of the previous 27 centuries. Prompted by the observed correlation between GSL and air temperatures, the authors also used a semi-empirical model (a simple relationship between GSL and global air temperature) calibrated against the GSL reconstruction, which shows that in the absence of anthropogenic warming, it is extremely likely that 20th century GSL would have risen by less than 51% of the observed 13.8±1.5 centimeters.
The study further used semi-empirical modeling to project sea level rise by the end of the 21^st century under a variety of greenhouse-gas emission scenarios. And the authors' findings—52 to 131 centimeters of sea level rise on the high end, 24 to 61 centimeters if emissions are drastically reduced—were closer to the conclusions reached in the most recent assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change than to the results from previously published semi-empirical projections.
"The short answer is that since the time of Christ, there is not much going on until the Industrial Revolution," Willis said. "And now, sea level is rising like gangbusters."

Links

• Past warming linked to rising sea level
• Briefing: a new era of sea level research
• Study: Rising seas slowed by increasing water on land

Natural Disasters Costing Australia 50% More Than Estimated

The Guardian - Michael Slezak

Reports find increases in family violence and mental health problems due to stress of natural disasters outweighs cost of rebuilding infrastructure

The social devastation resulting from bushfires, flooding and earthquakes can last for years, if not decades, reports have shown. Photograph: Joe Castro/AAP

The cost of natural disasters in Australia is 50% more than previously estimated– $9bn in 2015 – and is set to increase to $33bn by 2050 even ignoring the effect of climate change, according to two reports commissioned by the Australian Business Roundtable for Disaster Resilience and Safer Communities.
The reports included the first analysis of the economic costs of social impacts of natural disasters, and concluded they cost the economy more than tangible impacts like damage to property.
Among the tangible costs, the biggest occurred when critical infrastructure was damaged. Despite this, there was no formal requirement to consider resilience when making decisions about building infrastructure.
The reports said more investment was needed at times other than in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, with funding also required for community and infrastructure resilience, as well as longer-term social care.
The reports follow others by the Productivity Commission and Infrastructure Australia which also recommended more money be spent on resilience than recovery, which the government has been reluctant to implement.
"The reports show the long-term cost of the social impact of natural disasters on our communities and economy, and the benefits of embedding resilience into planning decisions for critical infrastructure," said the managing director and CEO of insurer IAG, Peter Harmer, on behalf of the Roundtable.
"We need to do more to help our communities prepare for and recover from disasters. Sadly the devastation of bushfires, flood and earthquakes on our communities can last for years, if not decades."
One of the two Deloitte Access Economics reports examined the social impacts of disasters and focused on three case studies: the 1989 Newcastle earthquake, 2009 Black Saturday bushfires and the 2011-12 Queensland floods.
In each case it found the cost of social impacts, such as increases in family violence and mental health problems due to stress, outweighed the economic impacts of having to rebuild infrastructure. However, some social costs could not be measured, which meant that the true cost was more than the study found.
Looking at the 2011-12 Queensland floods, some of the social costs it identified included:

• The exacerbation of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and the development of stroke resulting from the floods was about $430m.
• Research suggesting a link between natural disasters, stress and family violence led to an estimate that increases in family violence cost $720m.
• The lifetime cost of mental health issues resulting from the floods was estimated at around $5.9bn.

It also found some of the social impacts might affect women more than men, leading to the suggestion that responses should be gendered too, citing the example of Firefoxes Australia, which provided social support to women following the Black Saturday bushfires.
Noel Clement, Australian Red Cross director of Australian Services, said the costs could be reduced by investing more in community resilience before disasters, as well as on psychological and social services that extended beyond the immediate aftermath of the disaster.
He said any community program that helped neighbours to know each other could help, since they would then be more able to help one another when disaster struck.
"Governments, business and communities need to work together to address the medium and long-term social impacts of natural disasters through further investment and research into community resilience programs," Clement said.
The second report examined the impact of natural disasters on infrastructure and how it could be avoided.
It found that about $450m was spent each year by governments restoring critical infrastructure, a figure that would rise to $17bn by 2050. Despite $1.1tn likely to be spent on critical infrastructure between now and 2050, it said there was no formal requirement to consider resilience to disasters when making decisions about building infrastructure.
It found that government planning processes should include a requirement to consider resiliance. But that was not only the responsibility of governments.
Paul O'Sullivan, chariman of Optus, which is a member of the Roundtable, said Optus spent more than $1bn annually on infrastructure.
"As we have undertaken our own climate change review, it is clear that there is a need for stronger central coordination across government and other infrastructure providers, and an opportunity to embed resilience into government policy and planning activities. The report issues practical guidelines to address this."
The reports warn that they have not included the effects of climate change, which is expected to increase the frequency and severity of natural disasters in Australia.
In May 2015, the Productivity Commission delivered a report into natural disaster funding, finding it was not currently "efficient, equitable or sustainable".
"Governments overinvest in post-disaster reconstruction and underinvest in mitigation that would limit the impact of natural disasters in the first place. As such, natural disaster costs have become a growing, unfunded liability for governments," it said. It recommended mitigation funding be increased by $400m a year, and expressly warned against "cherry-picking" some recommendations from the report, since they formed a cohesive package.
When asked whether the government would be implementing the recommendations, a spokeswoman for the minister for justice, Michael Keenan, said the government did not plan to implement the shifting of funding from disaster recovery to disaster mitigation, which she described as "severe cuts to recovery funding".
"The government is consulting with the states on proposed reforms to disaster funding arrangements, in particular around a new model for funding the restoration of essential public assets."
"As consultations are ongoing, the timing for the release of the government's response is yet to be settled," the spokeswoman said.

Links

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• Call for urgent inquiry into world heritage forest fires in Tasmania
• Cost of property losses from Victorian bushfires is expected to top $40m
• WA will need twice as many firefighters in 2030 to cope with climate change – report

Impact Of Climate Change On Public Health

ScienceDaily

Health consequences of climate change: Doctors urge action to help mitigate risks and prepare for new challenges

Climate change is already having a noticeable impact on the environment and global health. Around the world extreme weather events, increased temperatures, drought, and rising sea levels are all adversely affecting our ability to grow food, access clean water, and work safely outdoors. Soon in some areas, the transformation will be so drastic and devastating that native populations will be displaced and forced to find new homes as environmental refugees. In a review published in the Annals of Global Health, doctors warn of the impending public health crisis brought on by climate change and call for action to help prepare the world for what is ahead.
As we begin to experience an unprecedented shift in temperature, we are starting to see the immense impact climate change will have on people around the world, especially those living in low-income countries. Bearing the brunt of the damage caused by climate change, low-income nations are especially susceptible because their economies often rely solely on agriculture and most do not possess the resources to ease the risks posed by climate events.
Low-income countries contribute just a tiny fraction of greenhouse gases (GHG), yet, they stand to lose the most if something is not done to curb emissions. In 2004, the United States, Canada, and Australia approached 6 metric tons (mt) of GHG per capita, while per-capita GHG emissions in low-income countries was only 0.6 mt overall.
"As global temperature increases, rich countries' economies continue to prosper, but the economic growth of poor countries is seriously impaired," explained co-author Barry S. Levy, MD, MPH, Adjunct Professor, Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine. "The consequences for economic growth in poor countries will be substantial if we continue on a 'business-as-usual' path of increasing carbon dioxide concentrations and rapid climate change, with poor countries' mean annual growth rate decreasing from 3.2% to 2.6%."
The adverse health effects of climate change will be broad and will tax public health resources globally. Vector-borne diseases, foodborne and waterborne illnesses, malnutrition, respiratory and allergic disorders, heat-related disorders, collective violence, and mental health problems will all likely increase due to climate change. Already vulnerable populations including the poor, minority groups, women, children, and older people will face the greatest challenges brought on by climate-caused illness. Malaria, Rift Valley fever, tick-borne encephalitis, and West Nile virus disease are spreading due to climate change.
Along with minority populations and poor people, women are more vulnerable to the health consequences of climate change. Co-author investigator Jonathan A. Patz, MD, MPH, Director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin--Madison explained, "There are many ways in which climate change disproportionately affects women, including and especially adolescent girls. In low-income countries, women and adolescent girls generally assume primary responsibility for gathering water, food, and fuel for their households. Climate change-induced droughts make this work much more difficult."
Because the challenges presented by climate change disproportionately affect already vulnerable groups, investigators warn that caution must be exercised when trying to manage the effects of climate change. "International organizations and governments at the national, state/provincial, and local levels should ensure that human rights are considered in developing and implementing mitigation and adaptation measures," noted Dr. Levy. "Nongovernmental and humanitarian organizations need to hold governments accountable in protecting and promoting these human rights."
Positive progress on this front emerged last December in Paris from the UN Conference of the Parties (COP21) on climate change. World leaders gathered there agreed to establish a $100 billion fund to pay for both energy development as well as damages already incurred by poorer nations. "The agreement, which included the concept of 'damages,' clearly shows a recognition of the imbalance between industrialized nations that have caused climate change and those countries already bearing the brunt of extreme weather impacts," said Dr. Patz, who attended the Paris meeting.
Now is the time to address these issues and determine proper plans of action. In this issue of Annals of Global Health, "Climate Change, Global Health, and Human Rights," guest editor Holly G. Atkinson, MD, Program Director of Human Rights, Arnhold Institute for Global Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, explained, "In many places around the globe where upheavals are occurring, public health systems have broken down. As a consequence, for example, we have witnessed the resurgence of polio--an ancient disease almost eradicated in 2012. Despite the evidence, many people remain substantially uninformed about the link between climate change and global health."
Public health problems resulting from climate change continue to increase, and yet, we are slow to react. With the most vulnerable populations among us set to sustain the most damage, this review in the Annals of Global Health urges swift and decisive action to protect poor people, women, children, older people, and other vulnerable populations from the health consequences of climate change now and in the future.
"The global climate crisis threatens most people and their human rights," concluded Dr. Patz. "The adverse consequences of climate change will worsen. Addressing climate change is a health and human rights priority, and action cannot be delayed. Mitigation and adaptation measures must be equitable, respecting, protecting and promoting human rights."

Links

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• How to Engage the Population With Climate Change? Frame It as a Public Health Issue
• How Do We Talk About Climate Change? The Need for Strategic Conversations
• Climate Change Threatens Global Security, Warn Medical and Military Leaders