Climate change worsening weather disasters
Every county in Oregon recently has been affected by weather-related disasters, an interactive online map released Friday shows.
Researchers with the advocacy group Environment Oregon created the map using federal data. They found the most commonly declared disaster was drought.
Over the past five years, 34 of Oregon’s 36 counties — housing about 95 percent of the state’s population — have had at least one drought-related disaster declaration. Nine counties have had at least three drought emergencies.
“Without action to stop climate change, scientists say these extremes — and their impact on Oregonians — will only get worse,” said Charlie Fisher, clean energy advocate with Environment Oregon.
The map shows that Marion County has had three weather related disaster declarations over the past five years — one each for drought, floods and severe storms. Polk County has had one flood disaster and one severe storm disaster.
The map does not show how recent disasters compare with those in the past.
Another study released Friday goes further to acknowledge the link between climate change and weather disasters.
The report, from a 10-person committee of the National Research Council, examined the influence of humans on recent extreme weather events.
“Every extreme weather event has the fingerprint of climate change,” Philip Mote, an Oregon State University climatologist and co-author on the report, said in a news release. “The question is not whether global warming caused Hurricane Sandy; but rather how much stronger it was because of global warming.”
Humans’ use of fossil fuel since the start of the Industrial Revolution has begun to modify the Earth’s climate in many ways, said David W. Titley, who led the Committee of Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change Attribution.
“The consequences of this change to the climate are seemingly everywhere: average temperatures are rising, precipitation patterns are changing, ice sheets are melting and sea levels are rising,” Titley wrote in the report’s preface. “These changes are affecting the availability and quality of water supplies, how and where food is grown, and even the very fabric of ecosystems on land and in the sea.”
The committee issued its report in the National Academies Press, published by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine.
tloew@statesmanjournal.com, (503) 399-6779 or follow at Twitter.com/Tracy_Loew
Weather disaster map
View Environment Oregon’s extreme weather map at http://www.environmentoregon.org/page/ore/extreme-weather-map.
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