Getting a Handle on Climate Change and What it Means for OUR FUTURE

It's been an amazing year. Tornadoes, floods, cold snaps, record rain and snowfall. I live in California and last week 4 tornadoes touched down in the Sacramento Valley and one twisted around for an hour flinging almond trees all over the place. We don't see many tornadoes in California. Winter is still here. We actually had a few days of spring last month, but been below freezing at 4,000 feet every night where I live in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

And, of course, to add insult to injury so to speak, the record precipitation is bringing all the radioactivity from the 3 Fukushima meltdowns right down to the ground where we all live - why isn't this in the news everyday? Well, that's another story.

OH, and by the way, the world is also creating more CO2 than ever before - another record!



It's time to get a handle on climate change and what it may mean for our future. The damage has been done and we've got to be as ready as we can. I've created some GIS shapefiles based on the most recent IPCC data. I used the A2 scenario because it seems to be the most likely to me. You can find out more about the IPCC scenarios here. With these shapefiles I can look at and compare various changes and scenarios for each decade from 2010 through 2099. I can:

• Compare temperature changes throughout the year, month by month.
  
• Compare precipitation changes throughout the year, month by month.
  
• Combine the above and see where and when it's likely to snow or rain.
  
• Look at temperature changes and determine when a heavy snowpack might thaw quickly and early resulting in flooding.
  
• Look at temperature changes and detemine what might be the best vegetables to grow.
  
• Examine temperature changes and see what affect that might have on my land - wildlife and plantlife changes over time.
  

These are just a few examples. To learn more, check out the climate change GIS shapefiles I have created. You don't have to be an expert GIS guru. I provide a free GIS Tutorial and Atlas. It comes with access to free GIS software and it will get you up to speed quickly so that you can make your own climate change digital maps. Best of Luck - We're Going to Need It, Mike Meuser GIS Project Development, Data Research and Custom Shapefile Creation Free GIS Software, Shapefiles, Maps and Tutorials Free GPS, Aerial, TOPO Maps and News If you have data, GIS project or custom shapefile needs send me an email Premium Shapefiles: ZipCode, Indian & Federal Lands, School Districts, Tornadoes, Dams, Climate Change & Global Warming

Climate Change Global Warming Shapefiles - Changes in Temperature and Precipitation from 2010 through 2099

With these detailed shapefiles you can find out more about the effects of climate change from 2010 through 2099 anywhere in the United States.

IPCC 4th Assessment scenario A2 temperature and precipitation GIS shapefile map layers for the years 2010, 2020, 2030, 2040, 2050, 2060, 2070, 2080, 2090 and 2099. The data points are spaced approximately 4.5 km (2.8 miles) apart. The data covers the lower 48 United States. Each point includes data for each of the 12 months of the year, making comparisons and calculations of increases or decreases between months and decades possible.

About the A2 Scenario

The A2 storyline and scenario family describes a very differentiated and heterogeneous world. The underlying theme is self-reliance and preservation of local identities. Emphasis on economic, social, and cultural interactions between regions is less than in other storylines. Fertility patterns across regions converge very slowly, which results in high population growth. Economic development is uneven, the income gap between now-industrialized and developing parts of the world does not narrow, and per capita economic growth and technological change are more fragmented and slower than in other storylines. Main characteristics A2 scenario include: high population growth, medium GDP growth, high energy use, medium-high land use changes, low resource (mainly oil and gas) availability, slow pace and direction of technological change favoring regional economic development.

Learn More and Download IPCC 4th Assessment GIS Shapefiles

Global Aerosol from Earth Observation (GlobAerosol) Geodata Maps

The GlobAEROSOL generates daily global aerosol maps for the period 1995-2007 by merging ATSR-2, AATSR, MERIS and SEVIRI satellite data. The products produced are aerosol optical depths at 0.55 and 0.87um and Angstrom coefficient and estimated speciation.

This dataset comprises the following product types:

ATSR-2 Orbit-based Pixel Counts. These are supplementary files generated for ATSR-2 alone, which contain the number of instrument pixels from each channel which were included in each retrieval grid cell. Individual-sensor Orbit-based Aerosol Products (IOAP). These files contain all the output of the individual sensor retrievals, with coverage corresponding to that of the original level 1 (radiance) data from the sensor.

Individual-sensor Global Aerosol Products (IGAP). These constitute bias-corrected daily maps of aerosol properties derived from each sensor, at a specific time of day. For ORAC retrievals results are only reported for the "best" aerosol type (and this type is identified). In all cases the IGAPs contain estimates of aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 550 nm and 865 nm and the Angstrom coefficient...

Full article and access the Global Aerosol Geodata

Spy Satellite Photos: Obama Reveals Secret Evidence of Global Warming Bush Tried to Hide

Graphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic have been released by the US military. The photographs, taken by spy satellites over the past decade, confirm that in recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months.

The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last week. President Barack Obama is currently trying to galvanize Congress and the American public to take action to halt catastrophic climate change [1] caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

One particularly striking set of images - selected from the 1,000 photographs released - includes views of the Alaskan port of Barrow. One, taken in July 2006, shows sea ice still nestling close to the shore. A second image shows that by the following July the coastal waters were entirely ice-free.

View or download satellite images and read entire article

Climate Change Material Moved to ClimateShift.com

Our climate change maps, news, resource, etc. have been online in various forms since 2004. Most recently our domain, ClimateShift.com was redirected to a directory on MapCruzin.com. The unfortunate result of this was that, over time, many of the links to climate change, global warming and climate shift news, maps, data, research, impacts, renewal, war & security, skeptics, energy, resources, extreme weather, injustice, videos, and Google Earth & Maps mashups became buried. So, we decided that it was time ClimateShift.com stood on its own.

Please bear with us as we re-format and update many of the pages and links and add new material. Updates are posted on the Climate Shift Blog on a regular basis. You can also follow us on Twitter.

Thanks for visiting ClimateShift.com!

2009 Climate Impacts in the United States Maps, Charts & Tables

2009 Climate Impacts in the United States Maps, Charts & Tables. These are the high resolution images used in the 2009 United States Global Change Research Program Report, Climate Impacts in the United States.

View and download maps, charts and tables from Climate Impacts in the United States report

Climate Change Maps and Updates

We've added several news items, resources and maps to our climate change pages.

View or download climate change related resources and maps now

World Thematic Maps by Country

World Thematic Maps by Country - population, military, landuse, energy, industry, economy, ethnic, religion, climate ...

View or Download

Climate Change and Sea Level Rise Maps

Added the following to our Climate Shift page: Climate Change and Sea Level - Shoreline geomorphology, erosion, deposition, and subsidence, tide range and wave height, engineered structures such as jetties and seawalls, and elevation above sea level are some of the many factors that determine the degree to which a coastal area is susceptible to sea level rise. Of these, elevation data are available for any location of the globe and are very effective in depicting and communicating to the public areas that may be susceptible to sea level rise.