[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 180 (Wednesday, November 14, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6950-S6951]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, it is hard, particularly for those of 
us from coastal States, to overstate the importance of the Earth's 
oceans as a storehouse of our food, as a regulator of our climate, as a 
highway for our travel and trade, and as a source of wonder, joy, and 
recreation. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and 
Development, oceans contributed $1.5 trillion to the global economy in 
2010. But climate change is putting this all at risk.
  I have spoken frequently here on the floor about the threat climate 
change poses to our oceans and of the warning signals blaring around 
the world. One of the most overlooked of those signals is the enormous 
amount of heat accumulating in the oceans.

  As CBS News reported last week, ``recent revelations have been 
particularly alarming'' and ``deserv[ing] of a big neon sign on 
Broadway.'' My humble floor speeches may not be a big neon sign on 
Broadway, but I do hope they shine a little light on the plight of our 
oceans, which ultimately is our human plight.
  We know that more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by our 
greenhouse gas emissions has been absorbed by the oceans--no dispute, 
not even by the Trump administration. The Federal Government's ``2017 
Climate Science Special Report,'' a multiagency report by experts from 
NOAA, NASA, and the Department of Energy, labeled as ``the United 
States' most definitive statement on climate change science'' by the 
New York Times, found that the oceans absorbed more than 9 zettajoules 
of heat energy per year.
  What is a zettajoule? A zettajoule is a billion trillion joules. A 
joule is a measure of heat energy, J-O-U-L-E. So 9 zettajoules is 9 
billion trillion joules. That is more than 12 times the total energy 
that human beings use globally each year, just to put a scale on what 9 
billion trillion joules is.
  To get another measure of how much energy that is, visualize the 
power of a detonated Hiroshima-style atomic bomb. Imagine its classic 
mushroom cloud erupting into the sky. Imagine all of that energy from a 
Hiroshima-style atomic bomb captured as heat--pure heat.
  Now imagine four Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs exploded every second--
every second. That is the equivalent of the excess heat going into our 
oceans because of climate change, because of our carbon emissions. More 
than four atomic bombs' worth of excess heat energy is being absorbed 
by the oceans every second of every day of every year. That is a 
massive amount of heat energy, and adding it to the oceans has 
consequences.
  The most direct consequence of all that energy being pumped into the 
seas obviously is increased water temperatures. Global average ocean 
surface temperature is up around 0.8 degrees Celsius, or 1.5 degrees 
Fahrenheit, since preindustrial times. That is enough to throw off the 
delicate balance of ocean conditions that marine creatures rely on to 
survive. Within that global ocean warming are extreme ocean temperature 
spikes around the world. These marine heat waves in the ocean were 
first identified and characterized in 2011. This is a newly described 
phenomenon that climate change has brought to our seas.
  Although marine heat waves were first identified and characterized in 
2011, they have already caused permanent damage in our oceans. The 
Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef in the world. It stretches 
for 1,400 miles off Northeastern Australia, and it is one of the seven 
natural wonders of the world. It is made up of corals--corals that can 
become heat stressed and evict the tiny algae that support corals and 
give corals their bright colors. Without the algae, the corals appear 
white, so these events are called coral bleaching.
  In the summer of 2016, the Great Barrier Reef was hit by the most 
severe marine heat wave on record. It caused the longest and worst mass 
coral bleaching event in history. Then another heat wave and bleaching 
occurred the next year, in 2017. These unprecedented back-to-back 
bleaching events killed half of all corals in the Great Barrier Reef. 
If there is a wonder of the world, if there is a majestic feature of 
God's creation, it is the Great Barrier Reef, and we are busily 
wrecking it in this generation through carbon emissions.
  The prognosis for the rest of the world's coral reefs is grim. The 
U.N. International Panel on Climate Change released a report last 
month, finding that coral reefs will all but disappear from Earth if we 
warm by 2 degrees Celsius--which, by the way, is the goal we are trying 
to stay under through the Paris accord. Even if we stay under that 
goal, corals will suffer immensely. Without any changes to our fossil 
fuel consumption, we are on track to blow by 2 degrees and hit 3 
degrees Celsius of global warming by 2100, making corals virtually 
extinct.
  Warming oceans are wreaking havoc on the world's fisheries. Fish feed 
the world and power coastal economies. The World Health Organization 
says that fish are the main source of protein for around 1 billion 
people worldwide. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates 
that 60 million people are employed in fisheries and agriculture.
  Across the globe and here at home we are seeing dangerous shifts 
affecting the fishing industry. Rhode Island once had a booming lobster 
industry. But the lobster population is shifting north as our waters 
warm, leaving Rhode Island lobster traps empty. The National Oceanic 
and Atmospheric Administration reports, ``The lobster industry in New 
York and southern New England has nearly collapsed.'' Maine, as Senator 
Angus King has pointed out, is temporarily benefiting from the northern 
movement of lobster, but the lobster will keep moving north into Canada 
as the oceans continue to warm.

  Rhode Islanders and other New England fishermen are also looking 
worriedly at declining shellfish populations. Total landings for 
eastern oysters, northern quahogs, softshell clams, and northern bay 
scallops declined 85 percent between 1980 and 2010. The National 
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration identified warming ocean 
temperatures as the key driver for that decline. On the other side of 
that decline, of course, are the livelihoods of all the men and women 
in that industry.
  The accumulating heat energy in our seas is also causing them to 
rise. As water warms, it expands. This thermal expansion is responsible 
for around one-third of the rise we have measured in sea levels. The 
rest comes mostly from melting ice, again, thanks to climate change. 
Global sea level has already risen over eight inches on average in the 
past 100 years--more in certain locations--and the rate of increase is 
accelerating.
  Warming and expanding waters eat away at the large ice sheets in the 
Antarctic. As the edges melt away, the glaciers behind them melt more 
quickly, adding additional water to the ocean. The IPCC warns that as 
the world reaches warming levels of 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius--again, 
what we are trying to stay at; this is our target. This isn't if it is 
worse. At that 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius, ice sheet melt could trigger 
multiple meters of sea level rise over time--meters, not inches. We are 
already 1 degree Celsius above preindustrial times, so there is not 
much room for maneuver between where we are and 1.5 to 2 degrees.
  Warmer seas also supercharge storms. Hurricanes gain strength from 
heat energy in the oceans below them. Warmer oceans also evaporate more 
water to the atmosphere, generating more rainfall. Stronger and wetter 
storms then ride ashore on higher sea levels, pushing larger storm 
surges ahead of them into our coastal States.
  Many of us remember the devastation Superstorm Sandy brought to the 
mid-Atlantic and southern New England States in 2012. Here is what Dr. 
Michael Mann, professor of atmospheric science and director of the 
Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, said 
about that storm:


[[Page S6951]]


  

       Sea level rise adds to the storm surge of every single 
     storm that makes landfall. In the case of Superstorm Sandy, 
     in 2012, it added a foot to that 13-foot storm surge. One 
     foot . . . meant 25 more square miles of coastal flooding. It 
     meant several billion dollars worth of additional damage.

  At one point during this year's hurricane season, our tropics faced 
nine active tropical storms. The hallmarks of these warm, ocean-fueled 
storms can be seen in powerful hurricanes that hit United States 
territories in recent years. Hurricane Harvey hit Houston; Hurricane 
Maria hit Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands; Super Typhoon Yutu hit 
the Northern Marianas, Hurricane Florence hit in the Carolinas, and 
Hurricane Michael hit in Florida.
  No one storm can be blamed wholly on climate change, but scientists 
are increasingly able to link the increasingly dangerous level of storm 
damage to climate change, and we have had an eerie streak of record-
setting storms in the past few years. Hurricane Harvey was the single 
greatest downpour in U.S. history, according to the U.S. Geological 
Survey. It dumped over 50 inches of rain on Houston and over 30 
trillion gallons of water over Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and 
Kentucky. How much is 30 trillion gallons of water? For comparison, the 
Chesapeake Bay holds around 18 trillion gallons of water. Basically, it 
dumped nearly two Chesapeake Bays onto those States.
  Harvey's deluge was fueled by record warm temperatures in the Gulf of 
Mexico. Scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, found 
that Hurricane Harvey was over three times more likely to have occurred 
due to climate change and that its rainfall was increased by around 38 
percent due to climate change.
  Hurricane Florence intensified over water 1 to 2 degrees Celsius 
above average and dumped record rainfall and flooding on the Carolinas 
in September. Preliminary analysis suggests that Florence's rainfall 
was more than 50 percent higher due to climate change.
  When Hurricane Michael hit Florida just last month, it passed over 
water 2 to 3 degrees Celsius warmer than average. As it passed over 
these waters, Michael's winds increased by 80 miles per hour in just 48 
hours, a phenomenon scientists refer to as ``rapid intensification.'' 
It became the strongest storm ever to make an October landfall in the 
United States.
  The direct link between sea temperature and hurricane intensification 
is well established: Each degree Celsius of ocean warming causes a 7-
percent increase in maximum wind speed, and a storm's destructive 
potential increases by three times the wind speed increase.
  So how does that play through? To quote Professor Mann again:

       A 7 percent increase in wind speed is a 21 percent increase 
     in the destructive potential of the storm. That is with one 
     degree Celsius ocean warming. With Hurricane Michael, those 
     temperatures were 2 to 3 degrees Celsius above preindustrial 
     temperatures. If you do the math, that means it was probably 
     twice as destructive as it would have been in the absence of 
     human-caused warming.

  The result of the destructive power of Hurricane Michael was the 
almost complete demolition of the town of Mexico Beach, FL. Michael hit 
with 155 mile per hour winds and a storm surge of around 9 feet, 
completely demolishing 70 percent of homes and severely damaging many 
more.
  The degree of damage and the imposing costs of rebuilding mean that 
many Floridians simply will leave, and that is playing out across 
coastal properties.
  A falloff of coastal property values will spread, many sources 
anticipate, as people see more events like the destruction of Mexico 
Beach. Insurance companies, banks, and institutional property investors 
are already showing signs of anxiety in coastal communities.
  Freddie Mac has described the effect of this property value crash on 
America's coastal regions as follows. Freddie Mac--the great housing 
powerhouse--has said: ``The economic losses and social disruption may 
happen gradually, but they are likely to be greater in total than those 
experienced in the housing crisis and Great Recession.''
  Any of us who lived through the 2008 mortgage meltdown should take 
that warning deadly seriously. It is not just Freddie Mac. Moody's now 
rates coastal municipalities' bonds for this risk--Moody's, Freddie 
Mac, Union of Concerned Scientists, the experience of coastal 
communities. It is all piling up, and yet we do nothing. I haven't even 
talked about acidification. That is a separate speech--the chemical 
changes happening in the ocean, in addition to the physical changes of 
warming and rising. Set that aside, but it is just as dangerous.
  Despite these warnings just about ocean warming, Republican heads in 
Congress and in the White House seem determined to remain buried in the 
sand. I don't know how many more storms need to hit us before we are 
willing to take meaningful action. Americans who live and work along 
our shores--Rhode Islanders and people who live in other coastal 
States--are the ones who are suffering the most from all of this, and 
they are the ones who will have to explain our delay. Those Americans 
are entitled to a voice, not just the lobbyists of the fossil fuel 
industry. We must protect our coasts for when the next storms batter 
their way ashore.
  This is getting worse, not better. We must take responsibility for 
the changes we are causing in the world's oceans. We will not be 
forgiven for our indolence and disregard just because there is a big 
industry behind our indolence and disregard. Our oceans are warning us 
loudly, and they are warning us clearly: It is time to wake up.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I have come to the floor for three 
different reasons. Out of courtesy to the Democratic leader, who I see 
coming in, I will wait until he is here.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I am here.