{"id":36447,"date":"2014-05-06T14:50:04","date_gmt":"2014-05-06T19:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=36447"},"modified":"2014-05-07T10:11:40","modified_gmt":"2014-05-07T15:11:40","slug":"more-drought-heat-and-water-wars-what-climate-change-already-means-for-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/05\/06\/more-drought-heat-and-water-wars-what-climate-change-already-means-for-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"More Drought, Heat and Water Wars: What Climate Change Already Means for Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

EPA\/LARRY W. SMITH \/LANDOV<\/p>

A tree trunk is exposed where water used to be in Bridgeport Lake, which was over thirty feet (9 meters) below normal levels, in Bridgeport, Texas, in September 2013.<\/p><\/div>\n

A new federal report<\/a> out today from offers a stark warning about our changing climate. As carbon dioxide <\/a>reaches levels never before seen during human history<\/a>, we’re already feeling the effects of climate change, and it’s likely to get worse.<\/p>\n

The National Climate Assessment<\/a> is the product of hundreds of experts and scientists, organized by the U.S. Global Change Research Program. They claim it’s “the most comprehensive, authoritative, transparent scientific report on U.S. climate change impacts ever generated.”<\/p>\n

The report focuses on current and future climate change impacts to the U.S. For Texas and the Great Plains region<\/a>, climate change caused by carbon emissions will exacerbate the issues the region has long faced: droughts, heat waves, storms and flooding. Agriculture will suffer, water wars will increase, and it’s going to get even hotter.<\/p>\n

Climate scientists liken the impacts of climate change on weather to steroids: take a place like Texas already known for extreme weather, and then imagine if it started juicing<\/a>. Our region is already known for\u00a0“floods, droughts, severe storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, and winter storms,” the report says. It’s a dry region that needs more water than nature provides. “These variable conditions in the Great Plains already stress communities and cause billions of dollars in damage; climate change will add to both stress and costs,” the report says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The report stresses that the impacts of global climate change aren’t something to dread only in the far-off future. They’re starting to be felt now — one need only think back to the\u00a0record drought and heat of 2011.\u00a0Water loss rates that year were\u00a0“double the long-term average, depleting water resources and contributing to more than $10 billion in direct losses to agriculture alone,” the report says.<\/p>\n

During that hellish year, “temperature extremes were attributable in part to human-induced climate change (approximately 20% of the heat wave magnitude and a doubling of the chance that it would occur).<\/a>\u00a0In the future, average temperatures in this region are expected to increase and will continue to contribute to the intensity of heat waves.”<\/p>\n

Along the coast, climate change will result in rising sea levels, extreme high tides, and storm surges. Think back to the Galveston Bay oil spill last month, that closed a major shipping lane for days<\/a>. Now imagine what a few hurricanes could do.<\/p>\n

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