| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The latest US assessments drive home the fact that dangerous climate change is not just a future risk. It is already here.
In parts of southern Florida, residents are seeing their streets flood at high tide as decades-old coastal defences fail to cope with sea-level rise. In Alaska, thawing permafrost is causing more than $10 million per year in damage to roads, runways and other infrastructure. The amount of precipitation in the northeast has increased by 8% since 1991 compared to the long-term average, but the amount falling in extremely heavy rainstorms or blizzards has risen by 71%. Nationally, river flooding has remained constant, but it has increased dramatically in the northeast and Midwest and fallen in the southeast and southwest. Nearly 20% of Arizona and New Mexico's forest land suffered heavy damage from wildfires and pest outbreaks due to warming and drought between 1984 and 2008. Insurance against climate-related disasters is becoming increasingly expensive in some places, and unavailable in others.
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