Kentucky鈥檚 climate is getting warmer and wetter. The burning of fossil fuels is to blame.
The planet鈥檚 leading climate scientists humankind has not done enough to address climate change. Precious time remains to reduce our reliance on fossil energy.
State officials have to reduce emissions or to incentivize the use of renewable energy. Kentucky is one of just four states that didn鈥檛 apply for up to $3 million to create a climate action plan through the Inflation Reduction Act, according to the .
Many of Kentucky鈥檚 refuse to even the realities of . Others would prefer to use their in pursuit of other interests.
- Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron in opposing the EPA's move to allow California to ban certain gas vehicles by 2035. 鈥淭his is Democrats鈥� latest move to surrender America to a woke climate agenda,鈥� he said in a press release.
- In March, President Joe Biden vetoed legislation , who represents Kentucky's 6th district, that would have overturned Labor Department rules allowing fiduciaries to consider environmental, social, and governance goals when choosing retirement investments.
- U.S. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell wrote an in June blasting Biden鈥檚 efforts to reduce carbon emissions as a threat to national security.
- State lawmakers this year making it more difficult to retire coal-fired power plants.
Kentucky鈥檚 winter nights are warmer, the last decade has been wetter, and scientists say natural disasters like last will become more frequent.
Rising temperatures are a Rube Goldberg machine of cascading impacts. Every degree of warming will bring its own challenges, both known and unknown, with possible tipping points, die offs and feedback loops. Without action, Kentuckians and the rest of our civilization faces growing risks of , , and the rise of global .
Professor Ed Hawkins created infographic in 2018 using a series of vertical blue and red bars. Each bar represents the average temperature for a single year, and when stacked side by side, it鈥檚 easy to see how temperatures are rising over time.
It鈥檚 a look at the myriad ways climate change has affected, and will affect Kentucky in the decades to come.
How we got here
From plastics to fertilizer to fabrics to energy; fossil fuels define our civilization. But the exponential growth it鈥檚 afforded humankind comes at a price.
The planet鈥檚 warmed about since the rise of the industrial era. The majority of that warming is the direct consequence of the greenhouse gases we鈥檝e released into the atmosphere through fossil fuel combustion.
Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane trap heat in the atmosphere. Human activities have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere . There鈥檚 now more carbon in the atmosphere than at any time in .
Coal helped to build this country and remains an important part of Kentucky鈥檚 heritage but it is also the dirtiest fossil fuel. It鈥檚 estimated to be the single largest source of global temperature increase since pre-industrial times, according to the .
Since the dawn of the state鈥檚 mining industry, have mined enough coal to load a train wrapping three-quarters of the way around the planet -- around 10 billion tons鈥� worth.
Today, Kentucky remains the coal producer in the country. Around 71% of the state鈥檚 electricity still comes from coal, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Historical changes in precipitation and temperature
The offers one of the most in-depth analyses of how climate change impacts Kentucky. The report, prepared by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, lumps Kentucky into the southeastern U.S.
The Southeast has seen less overall warming in daytime maximum temperatures than most of the planet. Researchers hypothesize there are both natural and human reasons why.
Like the rest of the Southeast, Kentucky鈥檚 climate records demonstrate cyclical periods of warming and cooling dating back to the late 19th century. The 1930鈥檚 were particularly warm while the 60鈥檚 and 70鈥檚 were particularly cool. However, the Southeast has on average warmed at the same rate as the rest of the country since the 鈥�60s.
鈥淎nd then since roughly the 1980s, we've seen rapid warming, such that now this decade is on par with the 1930s,鈥� state climatologist Jerry Brotzge told LPM news.
Five of the 10 warmest years on record in Kentucky have occurred since 2007.
Much of that warming shows up in the record at night. Across the Southeast, the number of nights with minimum temperatures above 75 degrees during the 2010s was nearly double the long term average, according to the national climate assessment.
Over the next three decades, parts of Kentucky will likely experience days when the heat index reaches . from the climate nonprofit research group First Street Foundation found Kentucky is likely to join an 鈥渆xtreme heat belt鈥� concentrated in the middle of the country.
Kentucky is also about 10% wetter than it used to be, Brotzge said. That鈥檚 attributable to a warmer atmosphere, because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. It comes as no surprise then that five of the 10 wettest years on record have occurred in the last decade.
鈥淲hat we're seeing, especially in the last decade, are fewer drought events but possibly more flooding events,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou can assume with a warming climate able to hold more water you would expect a wetter climate and in some sense that is what we're seeing.鈥�
Heat
The research nonprofit Climate Central found average summer temperatures in Louisville have warmed 3.4 degrees since 1970.
That extra heat is absorbed by the concrete and asphalt that make up our city centers causing urban heat islands. In 2014, researchers found Louisville had among the in the country 鈥� around 10 degrees warmer .
are lasting longer and are happening more frequently across the Southeast. Nearly two-thirds of major cities in the region are seeing signs of worsening heat waves -- more than any other region in the U.S., according to the national climate assessment.
Heatwaves also typically than including floods and hurricanes, according to the . And it鈥檚 not just warmer days, it鈥檚 the warmer nights that prevent people from .
More summer days and warmer nights means more ideal temperatures for mosquitoes, and their vector borne diseases. Already, Louisville already has nearly two more weeks with each year than it did in the '80s, according to Climate Central.
Pollution
While Kentucky doesn鈥檛 face the same increased wildfire risks as the West Coast, toxic smoke from wildfires can travel great distances affecting air quality in the state as much of the eastern half of the U.S. saw recently .
Longer summers and warmer drier autumns can also increase the odds of exposure, which forms on hot dry days and increases the risk of asthma, inflammation and premature death. Nearly a century of warmer August temperatures is associated with increased human sensitivity to ground-level ozone, according to the .
Cities like have had trouble with ozone for years. But while some evidence points toward increased ozone concentrations with high temperatures, it鈥檚 also possible they could be mitigated by other changes, like switching to electric vehicles.
Finally, rising temperatures and higher levels of carbon dioxide are projected to cause allergenic plants like ragweed to grow faster and . estimates Louisville鈥檚 growing season is 17 days longer as a result of climate change.
Rainfall
Extreme rainfall events have increased in frequency and intensity across the Southeast, according to the National Climate Assessment. Already, the region鈥檚 seen an increase in the number of days with three inches of rain. It鈥檚 also seen a 16% increase in observed rainfall over a five year period.
Increased precipitation increases the risks of both flash flooding and river flooding.
While it can be difficult for climate scientists to determine the role that climate change plays in a single event like , they can say with that these are the kinds of impacts that will become more common as the planet warms.
Between 2040 and the end of the century, the extra rainfall across the region is forecast to cause Ohio River maximum stream flows to rise as much as 35%, according to the .
Agriculture
The warming climate also affects Kentucky's agricultural industry.
The National Climate Assessment predicts the Southeast could lose over one-half billion of labor hours due to heat. These losses are compounded in rural areas dependent on agriculture, forestry and tourism. By 2090, the region could see the largest heat-related impacts on productivity in the country.
The region is also trending toward drier summers and wetter fall seasons, reducing productivity during the growing season while making it more difficult to harvest a full crop, according to the assessment. Corn, soybeans, rice and cotton are among the crops also subject to decreasing productivity as temperatures increase.
like Kentucky has experienced can increase crops鈥� water use and reduce yields.
Increasing winter temperatures are also changing the types of plants that can grow in different parts of the country. Over the next few decades, Kentucky's climate will become more like Tennessee's. With fewer freezes, more tropical plants like lemons, oranges, papayas and mangoes could survive in new regions.
Forests
The increased variability in weather patterns is also affecting . Trees like the and the American beech will struggle to adapt as the climate becomes more tropical.
Species like ramps that grow in the southern Appalachians of Kentucky are sensitive to changes in temperature and soil moisture. A combination of overharvesting, changing temperatures and drier soil are now threatening the species, according to the climate assessment.
The climate crisis exists alongside a growing due to changes in land use, urbanization, pollution, invasive species and resource exploitation. There are more than 300 vulnerable species listed in Kentucky including songbirds, reptiles, crayfish, amphibians, mussels and plants.
These forces are playing out at rates unprecedented in human history. As a result, the 1 million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction across the planet.
A global perspective
It鈥檚 not enough to focus on how climate change impacts one little corner of the globe. The planet and its oceans, atmosphere, and weather are dynamic, interconnected systems that we all depend on.
In May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that carbon dioxide levels are the highest they鈥檝e ever been, even as an increasing number of countries and corporations pledge to rein them in.
The European Union鈥檚 climate monitoring agency has recorded .
The estimates the next five years will be the warmest on record. There鈥檚 a 66% chance at least one of those years will temporarily surpass the 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit of warming that the Paris Climate Agreement is designed to avoid.
And while it might be easy for a landlocked state like Kentucky to overlook, 90% of the planet鈥檚 warming is actually occurring in the oceans, according to . 2022 was the warmest year on record until this year.
The oceans are the warmest they鈥檝e been since the 19th century, and 2022 was the warmest on record. This year, sea surface temperatures , .
The is melting faster than researchers expected. A report published in " found the Arctic could see its first ice-free September as early as the 2030s -- regardless of whether we limit our emissions.
The worst impacts of climate change will disproportionately burden the most impoverished parts of the world, sending developing countries and island states to new extremes in flooding, temperatures and food scarcity.
A published in 鈥淣ature鈥� found climate change has already pushed more than 600 million people outside the habitable niche that best supports life. Toward the end of the century, that niche may shrink until 3 to 6 billion people are living in regions facing extreme heat, food scarcity and higher risk or mortality.
The basics of climate science have been understood for two centuries. The evidence is unequivocal: burning fossil fuels is the root cause of the changing climate, and until we phase them out, we are generating doom that will hang over the planet for generations to come.
The universe is 13.8 billion years old.
The earth is 4.5 billion years old.
Modern humans are 300,000 years old.
The Industrial Revolution began in a blink of a cosmic eye around 250 years ago.
on the impacts of global warming to senators in 1988. More than half of all the carbon in the atmosphere has been emitted .
There is still time to avoid the worst outcomes.
now is the moment to fast-track climate efforts in every country, in every industry and on every timeframe.
鈥淥ur world needs climate action on all fronts: everything, everywhere, all at once,鈥� he said.
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