Many scientists, in and outside of the United States government, are actively downloading climate data from U.S. government websites. They are fearing that the incoming Donald J. Trump presidential administration will strike out climate data that climate change skeptics do not appreciate.
You might say that to suspect such an action is jumping to conclusions. Yet, it is better to err on the side of caution. It is entirely plausible that the information would be purged. Trump has a highly politicized view of science and scientific agencies. It is quite conceivable that under his new appointees agencies will remove climate data, particularly that data which indicates how temperatures have risen remarkably and how current trends indicate that temperatures will rise further.
Additionally, temperature increase is not the only matter of concern. The impacts of climate change have ripple effects. Icebergs, ice sheets, glaciers and snow cover are melting. When those materials melt or fall into the oceans sea levels will rise.
Thus, some of the coastal areas will flood, particularly low elevation areas. Because of certain factors, not all coastal areas will feel the same impact. For instance, the Southeast of the United States along the Atlantic Ocean coast will "sink" while the coasts of southern California will not feel anything near the same impact.
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| NYC 2050s inundation levels from Level 3 Hurricane -Trump would preserve this NASA.gov page? |
Be sure to download the images of anticipated sea level rise at the
Sea Level Rise Viewer page. This page has topics which the Trump administration leaders probably will not want to remain online:
Sea Level Rise Inundation, Inundation Uncertainty (which leads to an external, i.e., non-governmental site --smart, Obama administration scientists)
Mapping and Portraying Inundation Uncertainty,
Marsh Migration Due to Sea Level Rise, Social Vulnerability Index (also leading to
an non-governmental site), the social impacts --in case people have not considered the wide ranging impact of the changes-- Bureau of Labor Statistics
Employment Data by Census Block Group and
Coastal Flood Frequency. Some of this is dynamic: visuals of sea level rise with maps and photo simulations showing disastrous results. Other pages are less immediately striking: pdf texts from four years ago. Here are more visual presentations:
Sea Level Rise - Map Viewer - Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flooding Impacts This has state by state map zoom-ins to access depictions of sea level rise for gradation increases of one to six feet.
Take a look: will Virginia or will Florida first experience more flooding of communities? See the changes in the encroachment of water with a 3 feet increase in sea level.
The above chart shows the projected sea level rises in various points in the metro New York City area over the 21st century. This points to a big impact. A 30 cm rise is the equivalent of one-foot. This is projected to impact greater New York in the next fifteen years, based on several agency studies in Canada and the United Kingdom. And note that two to three foot increases in sea level are predicted to happen within this century. When you cross-reference this with maps presently found at National Air and Space Administration (NASA) sites you will see that significant sections of New York City will be submerged. The same goes for the metropoli of Miami, Charleston, Norfolk and Boston.
The beginning of the text
"Rising Seas: A View From New York City" by Vivien Gornitz, 2000, at the NASA.gov site reads:
Rising oceans will eat away at the nearly 2400 km of shoreline encircling the greater New York City metropolitan region — presently home to 19.6 million people. Sea level has already climbed around 27 cm in New York City and 38.5 cm along the New Jersey coast during the 20th century. These local rates exceed the global average of 10-25 cm/century because the East Coast is slowly sinking, as the earth's crust continues to readjust to the removal of the ice from the last glaciation, around 15,000 year ago. But present rates of sea level rise could accelerate severalfold, as mountain and polar glaciers melt and upper ocean layers heat up and expand, due to global warming.
Clearly, these are ominous projections. So, can we expect the incoming Trump administration to retain this data? NASA might be even more directly under the presidential thumb, as the agency administrator reports directly to the president. In contrast to the NOAA, there is no parent department above NASA.
And then, there will be the ordinary news that we can well suspect may no longer be accessible after the Trump appointees make their imprint on vital agencies. So expect stories such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
"U.S. Winter Outlook predicts warmer, drier South and cooler, wetter North" to vanish. Yep, anticipate reaching the frustrating 404 message after you do your Google searches.
There are some sites which might fall lower on the risk scale. That is, they might survive the Trump administration. For example, consider the already very short-term oriented
Climate Prediction page of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with a 6 to 14 day horizon. Actually, for the record, already the
U.S. Hazards Assessment page leads to a 404 page. The non-controversy igniting
Monthly and Seasonal Outlook page showing temperature and precipitation is still available.
Yet, consider that the structure of the agencies might imperil them. The NOAA is under the supervision of the Department of Commerce (soon to be under the direction of Secretary Wilbur Ross). Consider the interests of businessmen. You can imagine that the DoC under Trump would have so much more impetus to press an anti-climate change position than a mere environmental supervising department.
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