Figure 14.1. Observed trends in some biophysical and socio-economic indicators. Background: change in annual mean temperature from 1955 to 2005 (based on the GISS2001 analysis for land from Hansen et al., 2001; and on the Hadley/Reyn_V2 analysis for sea surface from Reynolds et al., 2002). Insets: (a) trend in April 1 snow water equivalent (SWE) across western North America from 1925 to 2002, with a linear fit from 1950 to 2002 (data from Mote, 2003), (b) Spring bud-burst dates for trembling aspen in Edmonton since 1900 (data from Beaubien and Freeland, 2000), (c) anomaly in 5-year mean area burned annually in wildfires in Canada since 1930, plus observed mean summer air temperature anomaly, weighted for fire areas, relative to 1920 to 1999 (data from Gillett et al., 2004) (d) relative sea-level rise from 1850 to 2000 for Churchill, MB, Pointe-au-Père, QB, New York, NY, and Galveston, TX, (POL, 2006) (e) hurricane energy (power dissipation index (PDI) based on method of Emanuel, 2005), economic damages, million U.S. dollars (adjusted to constant 2005 US dollars and normalized accounting for changes in personal wealth and coastal population to 2004), and deaths from Atlantic hurricanes since 1900 (data from Pielke Jr. and Landsea, 1998 updated through 2005), and, (f) trend North American Net Primary Production (NPP) from 1981 to 1998 (data from Hicke et al., 2002).