08.05 OPINION: Climate Change Underway in US, Losses to Come

WASHINGTON, May 8 (RIA Novosti), Lyudmila Chernova – Climate change is already underway and should not be waved away as merely a threat to polar bears, said Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist and climate modeler at the New York-based NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).

“It is happening differently, but pretty much everywhere,” Schmidt told RIA Novosti on Thursday.

Urgent action is required to counter climate change impacts, the third US National Climate Assessment warned. The report, released on Tuesday by the Obama administration, examined the effects of climate change across the United States.

“The effects are regionally specific. Some places are going to be impacted by sea level rise, others by increasing heat waves, or droughts,” Schmidt said.

The report looks at the areas and communities where climate change is already visible and where it can spread in the future, examining society’s vulnerabilities.

Some experts believe that climate change will have advantages in the short run. According to the report, there will be a longer growing season for crops in the US Midwest, as well as a longer shipping season on the Great Lakes.

“Although the climate change might have some benefits, such as warmer temperatures in some very cold places, for the US, they are far outweighed by the losses,” Schmidt said.