Dear President Trump,
Congratulations on being elected the 45th President of the United States.
In all seriousness though, I have to say climate change isn’t some scheme cooked up by the Chinese, which I am one of. Look at this chart below showing the historical CO2 emissions of the US, Asia and China, my best estimate is that China will probably catch up on the US as the biggest cumulative emitter by 2045-2050. But I am hoping that you will provide much needed leadership on this regard and push both the US and China to the positive direction and for the good of all humanity.
Asia would have surpassed the United States as the world’s largest cumulative CO2 emitter by 2016.
Now here are 10 most important GIF animated pictures/maps/etc. that you may want to have a quick read/watch before entering the White House:
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Ice Meltdown in the Arctic between 1984 and 2016
Yeah, it is far from where most Americans live, yet this frigid place is so important for us to foresee our climate future that it has gotten the overwhelming majority of scientists worried. It is like a canary in the coal mine, telling us what’s in store for us in the coming decades. The faster the ice melts here, the less white surface there will be in the summer to reflect a lot of the solar radiation back into space and the more heat the Arctic sea water will absorb, the more heat this ocean accumulates, the even faster the ice melts; on and on goes the vicious cycle…
The age of the ice is represented in shades of blue-gray to white, with the brightest whites representing the oldest ice. In September 1984, there were 1.86 million square kilometers of old ice (5 years or older) spread across the Arctic at its yearly minimum extent. In September 2016, there were only 110,000 square kilometers of older sea ice left. Original post on NASA
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Glaciers Disappearing in the Himalayas
This is close to my homeland, yet it is also remote and wild and few of my fellow Chinese ever set foot near there. You probably have heard (it’s OK if you don’t believe) that glaciers mostly everywhere are retreating and melting away. Yet what’s more alarming is that “retreat” is such a weak term to describe what’s really happening. These glaciers, taking the Earth millions of years to build up, are thinning down, or pancaking like crazy. Below is the main glacier, under the foot of the world’s tallest mountain, losing a vertical mass of 300+ feet all along its many miles of body length. That is solid ice as high as a Statue of Liberty, gone in just 80 years.
Glacier under the foot of Mt Everest melting down by 300+ vertical feet between 1921-2007; photographs by George Mallory and David Breashears
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Warming Temperatures Since Late 19th Century
These below are the best temperature trajectories of our planet since record keeping started in 1880s. Things are only getting hotter.
Global temperature anomalies for every month since 1880, a result of the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, by NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office
Temperature anomalies decade by decade (latest, most red is 2005-2014): the average global temperature on Earth has increased by about 0.8° Celsius (1.4° Fahrenheit) since 1880. Two-thirds of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15-0.20°C per decade.
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Rising Seal Levels Impacting Coastal Cities
As the laws of physics and chemistry go, warming temperatures lead to melting glaciers and sea level rises, among other catastrophes. Here below is just one illustration of what kinds of scenarios we are faced with on 2C and 4C temperature rises. With the latter, those old days of grabbing the Bull’s balls for selfie fun will be totally gone.
Lower Manhattan under water 2C vs. 4C temperature rises, via ClimateCentral.org
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Devastating Floods
Flooding in this area earlier this year has been really bad. By the way you won most of the states in this map.
Heavy rains in December 2015 brought severe flooding along the Mississippi River, via NASA
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Shrinking Lake Mead and Expanding Las Vegas
This is a mixed picture: both expanding human population and overdraft of fresh water resources here in the desert have played a big role in the shrinking Lake Mead. And climate here is only getting warmer and drier.
Las Vegas and Hoover Dam 1984-2016
Lake Mead main body on Hoover Dam side, 1984-2016
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Fracking in the Heartland
Yep, you also won Texas. And the place ain’t looking pretty from space. But it looks not too bad as we cannot see another layer of the picture, which is the leaking methane that is 20 times or more potent than carbon dioxide.
In the early 2000s, the area east of Cotulla, Texas, was dry, sleepy shrubland. By 2015, a bustling network of roads and rectangular drill pads had completely transformed the landscape. The pair of satellite images below shows how much the landscape has changed. Landsat 5 acquired the upper image on December 17, 2000; Landsat 8 captured the lower image on December 18, 2015. More on NASA
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Mountain Top Removal Mining
This below happened in West Virginia, also in your basket. It isn’t pretty, is it?
This time-series of images of a surface mine in Boone County, West Virginia, illustrates why this controversial mining method is also called “mountaintop removal.” Based on data from Landsat 5, 7, and 8, these natural-color images document the growth of the Hobet mine as it moves from ridge to ridge between 1984 to 2015. More on NASA
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Amazon Deforestation
The Amazon is losing bigly. Below is what happened in just 12 years in Brazil. It is not, indeed, in America’s backyard, but boy it is going to haunt all of us Earthlings pretty soon.
By the start of this satellite time series from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite, the frontier had reached the remote northwest corner of Rondônia. Intact forest is deep green, while cleared areas are tan (bare ground) or light green (crops, pasture, or occasionally, second-growth forest). Over the span of 12 years, roads and clearings pushed west-northwest from Buritis toward the Jaciparaná River. The deforested area along the road into Nova Mamoré expanded north-northeast all the way to the BR-346 highway.
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Decreasing NO2 in the Air in the US
Oh, last but not least, there is good news too. Due to environmental regulations in the US, the NO2 pollution in the air has gone down dramatically, seen below between 2005 and 2014 (less red). China, on the other hand, has gotten worse. So let’s not take out the EPA?
The trend map of the United States shows the large decreases in nitrogen dioxide concentrations tied to environmental regulations from 2005 to 2014.
NO2 concentrations in Asia between 2005 and 2014, with the blue indicating 0 and the red indicating 5,000 trillion molecules per cubic centimeters (images: NASA)
I am sure you are going to have great holidays coming up soon. Please, for the well being of our grandchildren, and their grandchildren, take some time to prepare for your presidency. Let me know if you have any questions for the pictures above. If it’s beyond my expertise to help you, I am sure you could tweet Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio.
God bless us all. We are, after all, just one team, according to your predecessor.
A concerned NYC resident not far from your campaign HQ
P.S. If your family are looking for some good films with entertainment values over the holidays, here are some:
