A government report on climate warns of the worsening of disasters in the United States

WASHINGTON (AP) – As catastrophic forest fires calmed down in California and the population rebuilds after two hurricanes, a massive new federal report warns that this type of disaster is worsening in the United States as a result. because of global warming. The White House report released quietly Friday also frequently contradicts President Donald Trump.

The National Climate Assessment was written well before the deadly fires in California this month and before hurricanes Florence and Michael swept the east coast and Florida. He says extremes charged warming "- have already become more frequent, more intense, widespread or long-lasting. The report notes that recent years have shattered US weather records, costing nearly $ 400 billion since 2015.

The recent fires in northern California can be attributed to climate change, but there was less connection with those in southern California, said co-author William Hohenstein of the US Department of Agriculture.

"A hot, dry climate has increased the area burned in the last 20 years," he said at a press conference on Friday.

The report is mandated by law every few years and relies on more than 1,000 previous research studies. It details the adverse effects of the burning of coal, oil and gas on global warming in every region of the United States and its impact on different sectors of the economy, including energy and agriculture.

"Climate change is transforming where and how we live and presents growing challenges to human health and the quality of life, the economy and the natural systems that support us," the report says.

This includes the aggravation of air pollution causing heart and lung problems, more diseases caused by insects, the possibility of a significant increase in the number of deaths during heat waves and more harmful allergies.

"Annual losses in some economic sectors are expected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century – more than the current gross domestic product (GDP) of many US states," the report says. This will be particularly expensive on the coast of the country due to rising seas and strong storm surges, which will lower the value of properties. And in some areas, such as parts of Alaska and Louisiana, coastal floods will likely force people to move.

"We're seeing that the things we planned would happen in real life," said fellow co-author Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University. "As a climatologist, it's almost surreal."

And Donald Wuebbles, co-author of the University of Illinois climatologist, said, "We will continue to see the severe weather become stronger and more intense."

What makes the report different from others is that it focuses on the United States, and then goes more local and granular.

"All climate change is local," said Richard Alley, a climatology scientist at Pennsylvania State University, who was not part of the report but praised it.

While scientists talk about average global temperatures, people feel more extreme, he said.

"We live in our drought, our floods and our heat waves, which means we have to focus on ourselves," he said.

According to the report, the bottom 48 states have warmed 1.8 degrees (1 degree Celsius) since 1900 and 1.2 degrees in recent decades. According to the report, by the end of the century, the United States will have a temperature of 3 to 12 degrees (1.6 to 6.6 degrees Celsius) higher, depending on the amount of greenhouse gases released in the air.

Scientists and officials outside of 13 federal agencies wrote the report, which was released the afternoon following Thanksgiving. It was originally scheduled for December. The report often clashes with the president 's earlier statements and tweets about the legitimacy of the science of climate change, how much of it is caused by humans, how cyclical it is and what causes it. increase in recent forest fires.

Trump tweeted this week about the cold weather in the east of the country, including: "A violent and prolonged blast could shatter all records – what happened to global warming?"

Friday's report seemed to anticipate such comments, stating: "On shorter time scales and smaller geographical areas, the influence of natural variability may be greater than that of human activity … On scales In climatic weather of several decades, the temperature continues to regress steadily.

The publication of the report on Black Friday "is an attempt by the Trump administration to bury this report and continue the campaign of not only denying but removing the best of climate science," said the co-author from the study Andrew Light, an international policy expert at the World Resources Institute.

At a press conference on Friday, the report's officials repeatedly refused to answer questions about when it was published and why it contradicted Trump's public statements. The report's director, David Reidmiller, said the questions on timing were "relevant", but the content of the report was more important.

Trump, the administration officials and elected Republicans often say that they can not say how much of climate change is caused by humans and how natural it is.

Citing many studies, the report says that more than 90% of the current warming is caused by humans. Without greenhouse gases, natural forces – such as changes in the sun's energy – would slightly cool the Earth.

"There are no credible alternative human or natural explanations supported by the observation data," the report says.

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