Climate Wrap - 296

2023 Tops the Charts

By Mark Peterson

It’s late December. We’re hiking on bare trails, bicycling with a light windbreaker, and the skis,

snowmobile and ice-fishing gear are still in storage. Santa had no snow for his sleigh. Is this

Christmas in the Carolina’s? No. I’m describing northern Wisconsin as last year came to an end.

The numbers are now in, and they are grim. Last year was the hottest year the planet endured

since records began in 1850. Day by day, global temperatures didn’t just break records, they

surpassed the previous hottest year of 2016 by a wide margin.

When scientists examine geologic evidence, 2023 may also be among the warmest in at least

100,000 years. Let that sink in – 100,000 years. And it appears to be accelerating. The 10

warmest years on record have all been since 2010.

The economic and personal consequences were devastating. The National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration says that in 2023 there were 28 weather and climate disaster events

in the U.S. of losses that each exceeded $1 billion in damage. This is quite an outlier, well above

the 1980-2022 total average of about $8 billion per year.

Think unprecedented wildfires in Maui, devastating floods, oppressive heat in Texas and the

south, and extreme hail events. Nearby across our northern border, massive Canadian wildfires

destroyed more than 45 million acres of forests early last summer, sending unprecedented

plumes of smoke into the atmosphere that filled our skies. It obscured our blue summer horizons

and made our breathing outdoors unhealthy, equivalent to smoking half a pack of cigarettes a

day.

Anyone who has lived in our Chequamegon Bay area for several years has experienced the trend

of shorter, milder winters. A study of Lake Superior ice cover at Bayfield started by Bayfield

High School student Forrest Howk in 2007 and continued through last winter demonstrated this

reality. He gathered data from the Bayfield County Press and the Madeline Island Ferry Line

 

recording the opening and closing of navigation in Bayfield beginning in 1857. The data shows

that the last ferry crossing of the year has steadily grown later while the first ferry crossing of the

year has correspondingly started earlier. The ice is forming later and melting earlier. He

documented that the first time the ferry operated all winter because of a greatly reduced ice pack

wasn’t until 1997-98. While that never occurred in almost 150 years, this has now happened five

times in the past 12 years.

The good news is that we can reduce our carbon emissions without jeopardizing economic

growth. U.S. emissions declined in 2023 by almost two percent with a growing economy. This

reflects our move away from coal fired power plants toward natural gas and renewable energy,

and a mild winter last year. The Biden Administration’s climate legislation, the Inflation

Reduction Act, is still being implemented but will help cut our emissions up to 42% by 2030.

That still leaves us short of the 50% reduction of 2005 levels that the U.S. has pledged to cut by

the end of this decade.

We can’t let up – our winter economy and way of life on the shores of Lake Superior depend on

reducing carbon emissions. The current House of Representatives with its fixation on Hunter

Biden and impeaching President Biden rather than addressing the Nation’s many urgent needs,

requires new leaders in November. Meanwhile, the challenge falls to each of us to reduce our

carbon pollution. Business as usual is no longer an option.

Dr. Mark Peterson retired as director of the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute at Northland

College and lives in Bayfield.