prev
next
Iowa scientists: Climate change caused the drought
Drought damaged corn in Missouri Valley, Iowa. / AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
DES MOINES, Iowa Scientists are saying that due to climate change caused by greenhouse gases, Iowans should brace themselves for more bad weather like the 2012 drought.
More than 130 scientists from Iowa colleges and universities said in a statement on Monday that this year's drought is consistent with a warmer climate predicted as part of global climate change, and more droughts can be expected.
Severe U.S. drought by the numbers
Massive drought strikes U.S.
Drought slowing economic growth
"In a warmer climate, wet years get wetter, and dry years get dryer," Christ Anderson, research assistant professor at the Climate Science Program at Iowa State University, said in a press release. "And dry years get hotter -- that is precisely what happened in Iowa this year."
Scientists and researchers from 27 Iowa colleges and universities signed the Iowa Climate Statement. It says a warming climate causes extremes that lead to more flooding and drought, and Iowa has experienced both in recent years.
The state was hard hit this year when drought spread across two-thirds of the country.
Dave Courard-Hauri, the chair of the Environmental Science and Policy Program at Drake University, said in a press release that climate change like the recent drought is costing Iowans money, and if citizens band together to help solve the problem, it will also help create more jobs and expand the economy.
The scientists say warming will continue as global emissions increase and greenhouse gases accumulate, and they expect a growing number of droughts as soon as the 2020s.
Popular on CBSNews.com
- Children rescued from two elementary schools in Oklahoma 18 Photos
- Oklahoma tornado recovery grinds on amid grim scenes 110 Comments
- More severe weather expected after monster tornado
- Oklahoma tornado carves trail of destruction Play Video
- Oklahoma tornado as seen by storm chasers Play Video
- Tornado's destructive path 12 Photos
- Severe tornado tears through Oklahoma City suburb Play Video
- Mile-wide tornado rips through Oklahoma City area 61 Comments
Most Popular
-
01
-
02
-
03
-
04
-
05
Most Shared
Most Discussed
first Scientist is used interchangible with the all important they.
Second the average tempature from there own report shows that it is caused by longer growing season not hoter daily tempatures.
last if the answer is carbon credits and not reducing green house gases then it shows it is a scam. They wish to control carbon emitions not reduce, control means as always putting money in some mdille mans pocket. right now that is the chicago exchange set up by the group that includes the president. Scientistsay or scientistbelieve or scientisthaveconsecise are all pseudcrims for I dont know but I am right your wrong.
My parents were teenagers barely surviving on farms in the "dust bowl" of the Upper Midwest during the 30's. Mother often said that reasoning people began to see that awful calamity was caused by disrupting the prairies more than the land could tolerate, but her grandparents argued it was God's retribution for their greed.
I look to Iowa & other Upper Midwest state universities to host the first annual National Climate Change Summit. Perhaps then major broadcast media will properly cover it to educate the rest of the nation.
Many people shunned science out of ignorance & trust political diatribe instead.
The climate is predicted to increase 7 x more than it has with "business as usual". That is pretty much the ball game.
Even the World Bank is staring into the abyss.
One solutions is the "carbon fee and dividend" which returns fees to taxpayers as lower taxes and shifts to a free market which supports low carbon energy. Only Koch brother types and their Koch sucking cronies seem not to care and are willing to bet YOUR Earth that, somehow, all the scientists are wrong. You in?
The climate is predicted to increase 7 x more than it has with "business as usual". That is pretty much the ball game.
Even the World Bank is staring into the abyss.
One solutions is the "carbon fee and dividend" which returns fees to taxpayers as lower taxes and shifts to a free market which supports low carbon energy. Only Koch brother types and their Koch sucking cronies seem not to care and are willing to bet YOUR Earth that, somehow, all the scientists are wrong. You in?
Also, as we explain in our article here: http://pjmedia.com/blog/global-cooling-a-far-more-dangerous-fate/?singlepage=true:
"Contrary to the assertions of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a warmer world is a wetter world with less, not more, droughts. This is because evaporation increases with warming, putting more moisture into the atmosphere.
"This week, we'll be hearing in The Dirty Weather Report from Al Gore's Climate Reality Project that global warming will lead to more extreme weather. This is wrong. In the exceptionally unlikely event that the world warms significantly due to increasing greenhouse gas emissions, temperatures at high latitudes are forecast to rise the most, reducing the difference between arctic and tropical temperatures. Since this differential drives weather, we should see weaker mid-latitude cyclones in a warmer world — less extremes in weather, not more. Rising global temperatures would produce a tranquilizing effect on weather, something we would all welcome."
Tom Harris, B. Eng., M. Eng. (thermofluids)
Executive Director
International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC)
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/
Given Harris' hyperbole, it is no surprise he would ignore scientists at Iowa universities - scientists who have been conducting REAL scientific research in all areas affected by climate.
Help my house could be on fire maybe?
*In all of the debates Obama hadn't planned to mention climate change once.
*Obama has not mentioned the crisis in the last two State of the Unions addresses.
*Occupywallstreet does not even mention CO2 in its list of demands because of the bank-funded carbon trading stock markets run by corporations.
*Julian Assange is of course a climate change denier.
*Canada killed Y2Kyoto with a freely elected climate change denying prime minister and nobody cared, especially the millions of scientists warning us of unstoppable warming (a comet hit).
Meanwhile, the entire world of SCIENCE, lazy copy and paste news editors and obedient journalists, had condemned our kids to the greenhouse gas ovens of an exaggerated "crisis" and had allowed bank-funded and corporate-run "CARBON TRADING STOCK MARKETS" to trump 3rd world fresh water relief, starvation rescue and 3rd world education for just over 26 years of insane attempts at climate CONTROL.