Get News & Views Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
NOAA Study Forecasts Greater Extremes in Weather
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Seen Fueling Swings
WASHINGTON - As greenhouse gas emissions rise, North America is likely to experience more droughts and excessive heat in some regions even as intense downpours and hurricanes pound others more often, according to a report issued yesterday by the US Climate Change Science Program.
The 162-page study, which was led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, provides the most comprehensive assessment yet of how global warming has helped to transform the climate of the United States and Canada over the past 50 years - and how it may do so in the future.
Coming at a time when record flooding is ravaging the Midwest, the new report paints a grim scenario in which severe weather will exact a heavy toll. It warned that extreme weather events "are among the most serious challenges to society in coping with a changing climate."
While the Southwest is likely to face even more intense droughts, the scientists wrote, heavy downpours will become more frequent in some other parts of the country because of increased water vapor in the air.
"This report addresses one of the most frequently asked questions about global warming: What will happen to weather and climate extremes?" said one of the report's two cochairmen, Thomas Karl, who directs NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. He added that the report, which synthesizes the findings of more than 100 academic papers, "concludes that we are now witnessing and will increasingly experience more extreme weather and climate events."
The authors found that the last decade has seen fewer cold snaps than any other 10-year period in the historical record dating back to 1895. Under a middle-range scenario of future greenhouse gas emissions, climate models indicate that by midcentury, extremely hot days that now occur only once every 20 years will occur every three years. Richard Moss, vice president and managing director for climate change at the World Wildlife Fund, said in an interview that the report was prepared by "an A-list of authors" and is "really frightening."
In a conference call with reporters, Karl and the other cochairman, Gerald Meehl, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said there is no doubt that human-generated heat-trapping gases have helped intensify both the Southwest's current drought and the heavy downpours, which have been increasing at a rate three times that of average precipitation over the past century. "That's a certainty," Karl said. "People aren't questioning whether there's been an increase in heavy downpours."
By the end of the century, he added, models predict that intense bouts of precipitation that might have occurred once every 20 years will take place every five years.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
8 Comments so far
Show All"BY THE END OF THE CENTURY", HE ADDED. __ What???
By the end of the century??? ___ Bullshit. How about ten to twenty years, maybe less before the Arctic is a water-world resort. Right now today, half of the Arctic ice is mush and July and August are right around the corner.
When the Arctic methane gas burps out into the atmosphere there there won't be anyone here to enjoy the warm weather up there.
I don't understnd why these guys speak in terms of 50 to 100 years. If we don't act now to dramaticallly reduce Greenhouse gases, we won't have 50 years. It's our kids who will reap the whirlwind.
http://www.farnorthscience.com/2007/09/26
This is just one lake of hundreds which are "burping" in the Arctic.
And click on the Arctic permafrost map icon.
That's the way they do it in Washington, Kem; whatever it is, the economy, the environment, you name it, they keep putting things off as long as possible---and they hope that when the chickens DO come home to roost, it occurs when THE OTHER party is in power, so the party out of power can gain the biggest possible political advantage out of those returning chickens!
The present capitalist system prevents the elites from thinking more than just a few economic "quarters" into the future. Does anyone really believe that more long term events like global warming stand a chance of being resolved under capitalism? If so, they're just as foolish as the right-wing who claim that global warming is a myth. The first and ONLY step towards saving this planet is to abolish capitalism. Then an economic system under democratic control can hopefully try and come to solutions that will work. Only abolishing an economic system based on private property and greed stands a chance of success when it comes to saving our planet.
Seems interesting that we have a study of how global warming has effected the climate of the US and Canada over the past 50 years, since we haven't had global for anywhere near that long. In the 70's there was a scare over global cooling, and in FACT, from January 2007 to January 2008 the temperature has FALLEN by .7 C.
Why can't these people just admit that this whole global warming thing was a guess, based on incomplete and inaccurate computer models. They get weather forecasts wrong all the time and it doesn't seem to bother anyone, I don't know why they can't admit that they might be wrong on this one.
And of course the final rebuttal is all of the melting... but everyone should know by now that this melting began at the end of the little ice age, 150-200 years ago, way before there was any increase in CO2.
And as for Al Gore, I'm sure that you've just read how his house uses 20 TIMES the energy of a normal house... guess he's really worried about global warming...
Thank you endCapitalism.. you make a strong point.
I would just like to add that the premise of capitalism- ever continuing growth - is incompatible with a planet that remains the same size. Pretty simple really.
I would also like to suggest, ending fakedemocracy.
Hey Geo:
Consider the following facts:
CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It increases the energy held by the atmosphere.
CO2 was at an equilibrium between photosynthesis of plants and respiration of plants and animals for milennia.
Atmospheric CO2 has been increasing since the beginning of the industrial revolution. It is now at the highest levels in millenia and increasing faster than ever.
Global temperatures have been increasing (some would say alarmingly) in recent decades. (Regarding your claim of cooling, it would take some artistic ruler and pencil manipulation to find that on any temp chart I have seen.)
Climatologists, starting with James Hansen, had a Eureka moment when they put this all together with early "forcing" computer models. They didn't get into trouble with the businessmen, neocons, we are in God's hands people... until they started sounding the alarm that CO2 data and model projections predict disaster.
O'Reilly can call Joe at Accuweather and spin what he says every night, but the vast majority of climatologists and scientists in general agree this is happening.
We are about to reach 7 billion people on our little globe. All hungry and thirsty and burning lots of fossil fuel, cutting down forests, polluting the ocean... as the world warms, the climate changes and sea levels start to rise. It doesn't look good to me.
I agree Al Gore is a hypocrite. He uses the lowest power lights and appliances in his mansion, pays a self-imposed carbon tax on his electricity, and he may even be installing solar panels... but it is a palace. If he really wanted to lower his carbon footprint, he should turn the estate into an experimental sustainability farm and get an apartment or over 55 quad near a train station. Does he still use a private plane?
~GEO~, You are stupid.
You also are a fool.