00:00We're covering a couple of interesting climate stories today.
00:03We'll start by going back in time to the origins of human-induced climate change
00:08and then turn to how a warming environment is impacting your electric bills.
00:14Brett, our first story from CNN.
00:16We have typically thought that humans-inducing climate change are accelerating,
00:21and it started in the early 20th century.
00:23New research, though, showing it at least a couple decades earlier.
00:26Yeah, first observations, weather observations, really started in the mid-1800s.
00:32But what they've noticed here is that the first detectable human signal of climate change
00:38goes all the way back to 1885, Dan.
00:41So what is different here about the research methods used
00:44or the different observations and modeling than other studies?
00:47Yeah, they looked at the stratosphere.
00:49Now, what's the difference between the stratosphere and the troposphere?
00:51The stratosphere is above the troposphere.
00:53But the troposphere warms with climate change because you're trapping all that heat.
00:57But in the stratosphere, while the heat is trapped to the surface, something has to cool.
01:02And so we look for a cooling signal in the stratosphere,
01:05and what they found was they detected a slight cooling signal as far back as 1885.
01:10So several decades earlier than we previously thought.
01:13Also, this shows the importance of monitoring.
01:15Yes, and what we're concerned about is the future NOAA budgets may limit
01:20or even completely eliminate CO2 monitoring in the future.
01:24Yeah, so monitoring is important for us to understand how our climate is changing.
01:28Obviously, in this case, seeing modeled data showing a stratosphere cooling
01:32many decades before we previously thought.
01:35So we'll turn to our second article now from the Wall Street Journal
01:38about our electric bills and how they're headed higher here
01:41as the temperatures climb throughout the summer, looking like an estimated 4% increase
01:45in electric bills on average this year compared to last.
01:48Yeah, all 4%.
01:49It seems like it's a lot higher than that, but yeah, 4% on average.
01:53Biggest increases we're seeing across New England, high usage of gas energy there,
01:59less across the West Coast, but overall the increase, not surprising.
02:03Summers are getting warmer with climate change.
02:05Not every summer is warmer than the previous summer,
02:07but with climate change we're seeing more heat usage of air conditioning, of course,
02:12which adds to the demand.
02:14And then also, with climate change, as we've explained earlier, many more extremes.
02:19And with more extremes, we see more damage to infrastructure.
02:22Also, it seems like there's an increase in brownouts from increased demand.
02:26It seems like you mentioned New England.
02:27There's also less pipeline supply from natural gas to New England.
02:31That's also another example of the increase or a reason for the increased cost there.
02:37Right, exactly.
02:38And again, also another thing to consider, the usage of electric cars.
02:42Many people are using much more energy to charge their cars.
02:46So it seems like the bills are going to keep going up.
02:48We need more supply of natural gas and also the importance of other energy sources
02:54to be able to supply our energy as we head into the future.
02:57Thank you, Brett.
02:58For other information about climate, other stories,
03:00you can find that at accuweather.com slash climate.
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