"On the 'top' is a photograph of Muir Glacier taken on August 13, 1941, by glaciologist William O. Field; on the 'bottom', a photograph taken from the same vantage on August 31, 2004, by geologist Bruce F. Molnia of the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
According to Molnia, between 1941 and 2004 the glacier retreated more than twelve kilometers (seven miles) and thinned by more than 800 meters (875 yards).
Ocean water has filled the valley, replacing the ice of Muir Glacier; the end of the glacier has retreated out of the field of view. The glacier’s absence reveals scars where glacier ice once scraped high up against the hillside. In 2004, trees and shrubs grow thickly in the foreground, where in 1941 there was only bare rock."
http://nsidc.org/data/glacier_photo/special_high_res_muir.html
Climate change can best be understood as increased energy in the earth's overall atmosphere. While this means warming in the overall planet average many places may actually experience temperature drops due to the complex nature of global weather patterns. Climate change will disrupt rainfall amounts, ocean currents, air flow patterns and more. It can be hard to predict the change on a local geographic region due to the many factors involved.
Overall, storm frequency and intensity will increase. Plant growing zones will fluctuate. Insects and diseases spread by them will migrate. Environmental constraints on invasive species will be changed. All of these phenomena have all ready taken place to some degree and will increase as climate change increases.
Preserving and stocking food is an important precaution, even when one is not facing global change it is prudent to be prepared in this area. Food self production and independence could become an important factor in ones survival. Understanding and identification of changes in local flora and fauna will become a more valuable skill. Water caching and collection are important topics to understand. Storm shelters will become more important. Flooding and mudslides require a more careful selection and knowledge of local terrain. Changing one's lifestyle to require fewer things, and to produce more of the things one needs, is beneficial not only to one's personal survival but, as more people adopt this outlook, to the survival of the planet.
Most of these precautions, although mentioned briefly here, have been or will be covered in more detail in the posts of this blog. A good way to get ahead of the curve is to educate oneself on the effects and consequences of climate change. A web search will provide a plethora of information on the subject. A good place to start to find regional, as well as global, information is from the two links provided below.
"The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change is the leading body for the assessment of climate change, established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences."
http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization.htm
"The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) coordinates and integrates federal research on changes in the global environment and their implications for society. The USGCRP began as a presidential initiative in 1989 and was mandated by Congress in the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-606), which called for "a comprehensive and integrated United States research program which will assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change."
http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts/download-the-report
Have a good blog action day.
Official Google Blog: A green tour of the Google campus
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