Fall Filming - Climate Change Across America: Follow us on Insta

[Bruce Melton -- Austin, Texas]

Friends and Colleagues,

We are about to launch once again to film more climate change across America - North America.

Filming this fall will witness the mid- and upper East Coast and New England, again.  We did 13,000 miles there last year in two trips, and found greater impacts than publishing and popular literature suggests. Forest mortality is high, but it may be difficult to shoot this trip because of leaf turn, though I am looking forward to the challenge: conifer mortality will stand out starkly with their tall pointy aspect and no needles, but I am not anticipating getting much decent work with broad-leaf kill from ash borers in New England at least, because borer kill looks identical to normal fall leaf fall. Red kill conifers may be equally challenging because of fall color.  One of my favorite questions from a tourist was at Rocky Mountain National Park when the mountain pine beetle was berserking. I was shooting with the big Nikon and a tourist walked up and asked, "Hey mister, what do you call these pretty red pine pine trees?"

The big targets this trip are arctic greening atop the highest peaks in New England: Whiteface, Washington, and Cadillac are on the list again, new is Katahdin, all may be snowed up by the time we arrive. A new target is salt water forest poisoning at Nantucket, and the same at The Banks that we shot last fall that was very significant, plus King Tide high water and dune erosion. The King Tide cycle that peaks this trip is between October 6 and 12, from the Banks to Nantucket.   My wife's co-author with their forthcoming history of my G-G-Grandfather (Blassingame Incident), Central Texas pioneer, who killed one of the founding Texas Rangers (rightfully), is on the board of the Williamsburg Historical Commission and he will have an audience for me to discuss archeology with a rising saltwater groundwater table. They have a good plan, based on NOAA's higher end projections, but treasures like these are of immense importance and need the most precautions possible, very likely faster than projected as very few effects of climate change are not greatly ahead of projections. 

It is critical to understand how much faster Earth systems are degrading than has been projected. This degradation is, or is directly related to climate tipping elements, where once degradation begins, it only grows worse because of feedbacks, unless our climate's temperature is lowered back to cooler than the temperature that caused the degradation to begin. This is basically the natural variation of our old climate where our Earth systems evolved, that maxes out at about 1 degree C above normal from the mid- and late 19th century, and 350 ppm CO2. Once degradation begins, a flip from sequestration to emissions is not far off as we have seen with ongoing flips of the Amazon, boreal forests, and permafrost, that have already begun to emit net, and are no longer sequestering. 

Curran and Curran 2025 quite meaningful in understanding our natural systems carbon equilibrium and how a small amount of Earth systems degradation can change our planet's carbon equilibrium trajectory - See below. We see it everywhere we go. Natural feedback emissions are taking over where sequestration once ruled.

Climate change is everywhere, and it is a lot worse than reported.

Y'all follow us on Insta.  We post more than a hundred filming logs per trip. There are also about 50 posts here from the Central Texas flood tragedies the 4th and 5th of July - https://www.instagram.com/bruce.c.melton/

MeltOn

Photo of Mauna Loa Observatory, by my old friend Jim McClintock, with permission

Curran and Curran, Natural sequestration of carbon dioxide is in decline - climate change will accelerate, Royal Meteorological Society, March 2025.
https://mailchi.mp/austinsierraclub/austin-sierra-club-newsletter-rewilding-zilker-at-the-general-meeting-new-walk-with-muir-do-something-about-the-weather-climate-change-9440249?e=85301d570d#Natural_Sequestration 

Natural sequestration of carbon dioxide is in decline: climate change will accelerate First published at the Royal Meteorological Society by Curran and Curran on January 15, 2025 Forest degradation from insects and disease across the world, declining ocean and soils absorption and increased permafrost thaw have flipped Earth’s natural greenhouse gas sequestration systems into decline. What this means is that, if our Earth systems were sequestering greenhouse gases at the same rate they did in the 1960s, the annual atmospheric growth rate would have been 1.9 ppm CO2. Instead, the annual growth rate is 2.5 ppm CO2, and this is the 2010 to 2020 average. In 2023 and 2024, the atmospheric growth rate jumped markedly from previous data at about 3.5 ppm CO2 growth per year, according to the Mauna Loa CO2 records in Hawai’i (that have been threatened to be discontinued by the fascist dictator in chief.) (Abstract) The rate of natural sequestration of CO2 from the atmosphere by the terrestrial biosphere peaked in 2008. Atmospheric concentrations will rise more rapidly than previously, in proportion to annual CO2 emissions, as natural sequestration is now declining by 0.25% per year. The current atmospheric increment of +2.5ppm CO2 per year would have been +1.9ppm CO2, if the biosphere had maintained its 1960s growth rate. This effect will accelerate climate change and emphasises the close connection between the climate and nature emergencies. Effort is urgently required to rebuild global biodiversity and to recover its ecosystem services, including natural sequestration. See the research article here > > >

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Bruce Melton PE
Director, Climate Change Now Initiative, 501c3
President, Melton Engineering Services Austin
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