Image Descriptions – Do Something Different Slider

Tourists on the Greenland Ice Sheet at Point 660, just beyond the edge of the ice

Photo taken 20 miles inland from Kangerlussuaq. Point 660 was the take-off place for the ill-fated Volkswagen winter proving grounds that were located 70 miles onto the ice sheet. When Volkswagen asked the ice scientists in Greenland if this location was safe from melt, the scientists said, Oh heck no.” Volkswagen built their proving grounds anyway in 2004. by 2007, the ice had melted and destroyed their work.

Paradise California After the 2018 Camp Fire

A business in Paradise, California after the 2018 Camp Fire destroyed 14,000 homes in six hours. It is unknown how the mural on the back wall of this business survived the conflagration. For more images of this climate change-caused tragedy, see https://ClimateChangePhoto.org and https://instagram.com/Bruce.C.Melton

Sandbergs calving into the Gulf of Mexico at South Padre Island

Up the wild four-wheel drive beach on South Padre Island, Texas, beyond the sand nourished million-dollar beaches of the tourist zone, the beach is gone at high tide and in some places the dunes have been completely eroded away. This image was during a King Tide in 2017 when the beach was entirely impassable at high tide. This image was taken at low tide. In the distance, the blocks of sand dunes with the similarly angled slopes are sandbergs that are calving into the surf as each wave runup erodes a little more from the bottom of the dune and eventually it slowly slides down into the surf.

See more images of beaches erosion from sea level rise here – https://climatechangephoto.org/beach-gallery/

Permafrost thaw, Tok Highway, southeastern Alaska

Extensive permafrost thaw was becoming evident in Alaska, the Yukon, and northern British Columbia when this photo was taken in 2018. Typically, permafrost thaw creates lakes where the loss of ice partially or completely submerges vegetation.  Not only are CO2 and methane released from the permafrost as it thaws, but the terrestrial ecology emits its stored greenhouse gases and loses its sequestration capacity.

See more permafrost thaw images here – https://climatechangephoto.org/permafrost-gallery/

Bark beetle mortality, Chihuahuan Desert, Big Bend National Park, Texas

This is bark beetle mortally in ocotillo, a tall (for the desert) spiny limbed  tree of sorts, with cardinal red blossoms and green leaves when it rains. Ocotillo, like many other desert species, are stressed from drought, just as any other ecology stresses from drought. The stress allows native insects to prosper, resulting in mortality. Ocotillo mortality is widespread across both the Chihuahuan and Sonoran Deserts of the North American Southwest.

Onion Creek record flood, Austin, Texas 2013

Rainfall intensity is significantly increasing across a large swath of Texas from the Gulf of Mexico to 200 miles inland. This effect of warming on precipitation behavior is so significant that it has increase flood volume by 50 percent according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Atlas 14 rainfall intensity evaluation for Texas. this is the first evaluation of rainfall in Texas since 1970 and it shows a marked increase in precipitation intensity that in itself is understated.

The understatement comes from nonstationary data issues, where NOAA uses traditional frequentists statistics to evaluate rainfall data, where this evaluation can be up to 60 percent understated because NOAA assumes the data are stationary. They are of course not stationary but increasing and this creates the understatement. Atlas 14 also stopped evaluating data in 2017, so significant warming since has almost certainly increased rainfall intensity further.

Another very similar flood on Onion Creek occured in 2015. Onion Creek is a major tributary of the Colorado River in Texas that drains a watershed of  135,000 acres.

The Bastrop County Complex Fire began on Labor Day 2011

The fire began during the worst drought Central Texas has ever seen. It was the largest and most destructive fire in Texas History at nearly ten times more than the previous record fire. Its perimeter encompassed 32,000 acres, burned 1,700 homes, and killed 1.5 million trees. The wildfire was the costliest and most destructive wildfire in Texas history and among the costliest in U.S. history.

See more images climate change-caused wildfire here – https://climatechangephoto.org/fire-gallery/