http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/us/california-governor-orders-new-target-for-emissions-cuts.html Source:   By Adam Nagourney, The New York Times. For Investigation:   10.3 Excerpt:  ...Gov. Jerry Brown issued an executive order Wednesday sharply speeding up this state’s already ambitious program aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions, saying it was critical to address “an ever-growing threat” posed by global warming to the state’s economy and well-being. The order, announced early Wednesday morning, was intended as a jolt to a landmark 2006 environmental law requiring an 80 percent cut in greenhouse gas reductions by 2050, compared with 1990. Under Mr. Brown’s order, the state would have to get halfway there — a 40 percent reduction — by 2030. ...Under the law put into place by Mr. Brown’s predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state was required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 on the way to reach the 2050 target; California is already...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/04/27/study-global-warming-has-already-dramatically-upped-the-odds-of-extreme-heat-events/ Source:   By Chris Mooney, The Washington Post. For Investigation:   10.3 Excerpt: ...scientists have...explained that while global warming doesn’t “cause” any single event, it can make them more likely to occur.... Indeed, published papers have shown that a warming climate had indeed increased the odds of a number of individual extreme events, including the 2003 European heat wave, the 2010 Russian heat wave and the 2013 Australian summer heat. ...in a new study in Nature Climate Change, Erich Fischer and Reto Knutti, of the science-focused Swiss university ETH Zurich, perform an analysis not for any individual event but rather for all daily heat and precipitation extremes of a “moderate” magnitude occurring over land in our current climate. And they find, strikingly, that 18 percent of today’s moderate precipitation extr...

http://www.globalchange.gov/health-assessment Source:   U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) For Investigation:   10.3 Excerpt: Climate change threatens human health and well-being in many ways. The draft report, The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment (available for download for public comment only between April 7 and June 8, 2015. ), was developed by USGCRP’s Interagency Group on Climate Change and Human Health as part of the sustained National Climate Assessment and as called for under the President’s Climate Action Plan. This assessment report is intended to present a comprehensive, evidence-based, and, where possible, quantitative estimation of observed and projected public health impacts related to climate change in the United States. Once finalized (expected early 2016), the report will provide needed context for understanding Americans’ changing health risks. ...The public comment period is ope...

http://environment.yale.edu/poe/v2014 Source:  Yale Project on Climate Change Communication For Investigation:   10.3 Excerpt: Public Opinion Estimates, United States, 2014, on these statements: Global warming is happening; Global warming is caused mostly by human activities; Most scientists think global warming is happening; Worried about global warming; Global warming is already harming people in the US; Global warming will harm me personally; Global warming will harm people in the US; Global warming will harm people in developing countries; Global warming will harm future generations; Fund research into renewable energy sources; Set strict CO2 limits on existing coal-fired power plants; Require utilities to produce 20% electricity from renewable sources; A carbon tax if refunded to every American household. Charts are granular at national, state, congressional district, and county levels....

http://www.onearth.org/earthwire/california-snowpack-levels-by-satellite Source:  By Clara Chaisson, onEarth, NRDC For Investigation:   10.3 Excerpt: California’s ... snowmelt normally meets about 30 percent of the state’s annual water needs. But this...is not a normal year. Ongoing drought has driven statewide snowpack down to just five percent of the historical average for the date of April 1—obliterating the previous record low of 25 percent. Worse yet, increasing low water levels may be the “new normal.” The downtrend becomes clear in ...NASA satellite imagery. [Satellite images interactive] of the Central Valley in March 2010 and March 2015 is basically like using a snow eraser....

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/science/earth/amazon-forest-becoming-less-of-a-climate-change-safety-net.html Source:   By Justin Gillis, the New York Times. For Investigation:   10.3 Excerpt: The ability of the Amazon forest to soak up excess carbon dioxide is weakening over time, researchers reported last week. That finding suggests that limiting climate change could be more difficult than expected. For decades, Earth’s forests and seas have been soaking up roughly half of the carbon pollution that people are pumping into the atmosphere. That has limited the planetary warming that would otherwise result from those emissions. ...In a vast study spanning 30 years and covering 189,000 trees distributed across 321 plots in the Amazon basin, researchers led by a group at the University of Leeds, in Britain, reported that the uptake of carbon dioxide in the Amazon peaked in the 1990s, at about 2 billion tons a year, and has since fallen by half. ...“Forests are d...

http://news.sciencemag.org/climate/2015/03/warming-arctic-may-be-causing-heat-waves-elsewhere-world Source:  By Carolyn Gramling, Science.  For Investigation:   10.3 Excerpt: Global warming is increasing temperatures twice as fast in the Arctic as elsewhere on the planet. Some scientists have suggested that this so-called Arctic amplification can alter circulation patterns that affect weather in the United States, Europe, and Asia, potentially helping cause the powerful winter storms and deep freezes that have blasted the midlatitudes over the past decade. A new study suggests Arctic warming could ultimately pack a summertime punch, too, possibly contributing to extreme events such as the deadly 2010 Russian heat wave. Melting sea ice in the Arctic has left vast expanses of dark open water available to absorb the sun’s energy. In the late autumn and early winter, when sea ice is at a minimum and temperatures begin to cool, the ocean releases that extra h...