Weird christmas weather, starting with tom roussey on the National Mall come just a shirt, no jacket. Jonathan, you absolutely do not need a jacket tonight. A warm christmas night, all kinds of folks behind me enjoying the warm christmas near the washington monument. This will be remembered not just for how warm it was but also how wet it was. Tom on christmas night, all was bright at the White House Christmas tree, until this family from waldorf tried their best to stay dry, but it was not working. Really cold. Rain on me. Its too much rain. Tom does it feel like christmas . No. The weather like this is utterly bizarre for this time of year. Jim and tina from manassas say they cannot ever remember a christmas this warm andwet at the same time, making it tough to get into the holiday spirit. Born and raised here, so we are used to cold winters. The toy train, this area do not see bad flooding like other areas of the country, and some folks like the weather. We got rain, so thats good.
The causes of ocean, this causes ocean waters to expand and in addition, mountain glaciers are rapidly retreating which adds water to the oceans. The Sleeping Giant however in the Sea Level Rise occasion has been ice in the main major ice sheets of greenland and ant antarctica. Both ice she is are losing mass. How quickly they melt over the coming decades will determine whether we have an additional one foot of Sea Level Rise or up to four feet and perhaps even more. Another major change in our climate brought by about humaninduced warm something the increase in heavy downpours. This is clearly an area in which recent observations have been born out, have borne out our previous projections. A warm atmosphere would hold more moisture. We measured that and indeed it is happening. We predicted increased in atmosphere of water vapor and more rain comes down in heavy events and now weve seen that happen. Some regions like the northeast and midwest have seen very large increases in the rainf
Together, and all of the information that the study has developed will be available on the web, again, in userfriendly, accessible forms, to provide people with the toormation they will need reduce their vulnerability. Of course, as you all well know, the president has instructed the Environmental Protection agency to develop standards both for new power plants, which have already been put out there, and soon, there will be standards proposed for discussion on and heatpower plants trapping gases, so this is a lot of progress. We also announced a few months ago a new study to reduce methane emissions which involves quantifying the emissions, committing to new steps to cut the emissions of that potent Greenhouse Gas, and outlining a set of actions Going Forward to improve the measurements so we can tell exactly how well we are doing. I would say, is what progress is supposed to look like, and todays events around this extraordinary assessment are another big step. As i think probably eve
Signaling the need for urgent action so that we can combat the s we face inrisk this country. President obama has long recognized the urgency of this challenge. , in a speech at Georgetown University on a sweltering hot day, the president launched his Climate Action land. Cutting Carbon Pollution in, preparing our communities for changes in climate that are already ongoing and leading International Efforts to address the challenge. One year later, a lot has happened in executing on the commitments made in the Climate Action plan. The president has directed the Environmental Protection agency and the department of transportation to develop fuel economy standards for heavyduty vehicles. The department of interior has announced its permitting of the 50th Renewable Energy project on federal lands during this administration, and the department of energy has issued multiple, new Energy Efficiency standards. The department of agriculture has announced seven new hubs to adapt operations to a c
Allow emitters of that pollution to trade credits and decide for themselves what costs that point source polluters are willing to pay for the ability to send Carbon Dioxide into the air. Weve heard over and over the Horror Stories coming from our friends on the republican side. As a member of the Energy Committee in the house of representatives when we debated the waxmanmarkey bill i heard it over and over again. They told us that electricity prices were going to dramatically spike and that yes, you are going to have a benefit to the environment from reducing Carbon Dioxide but you are going to have catastrophic consequences for the economy because everybody was going to have to pay for that. Well, you know, i guess i can understand how people would believe that if there wasnt any empirical evidence to test their theory. Luckily, new england has just that evidence. New england has tested this idea. Frankly, the whole world has tested this idea because weve reduced ozone depleting pollu