NASA Warns Of Scorching Summer Temps
Future eastern United States summers look much hotter than originally predicted with daily highs about 10 degrees warmer than in recent years by the mid-2080s, a new NASA study says.
Leonard Druyan, who co-authored the study, says it will not only be much hotter, but less rainy, especially in the summer months, reports CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston.
"Based on our study, the amount of global warming might be even more than previously thought," Druyan, said.
Previous and widely used global warming computer estimates predict too many rainy days, the study says. Because drier weather is hotter, they underestimate how warm it will be east of the Mississippi River, said atmospheric scientists Barry Lynn and Leonard Druyan of Columbia University and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
"Unless we take some strong action to curtail carbon dioxide emissions, it's going to get a lot hotter," said Lynn, now a scientist at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "It's going to be a lot more dangerous for people who are not in the best of health."
The study got mixed reviews from other climate scientists, in part because the eastern United States has recently been wetter and cooler than forecast.
Instead of daily summer highs in the 1990s that averaged in the low to mid 80s Fahrenheit, the eastern United States is in for daily summer highs regularly in the low to mid 90s, the study found. The study only looked at the eastern United States because that was the focus of the funding by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lynn said.
And that's just the eastern United States as a whole. For individual cities, the future looks even hotter.
In the 2080s, the average summer high will probably be 102 degrees in Jacksonville, 100 degrees in Memphis, 96 degrees in Atlanta, and 91 degrees in Chicago and Washington, according to the study published in the peer-reviewed journal Climate.
But every now and then a summer will be drier than normal and that means even hotter days, Lynn said. So when Lynn's computer models spit out simulated results for July 2085 the forecasted temperatures sizzled past uncomfortable into painful. The study showed a map where the average high in the southeast neared 115 and pushed 100 in the northeast. Even Canada flirted with the low to mid 90s.
Many politicians and climate skeptics have criticized computer models as erring on the side of predicting temperatures that are too hot and outcomes that are too apocalyptic with global warming. But Druyan said the problem is most computer models, especially when compared to their predictions of past observations, underestimate how bad global warming is. That's because they see too many rainy days, which tends to cool temperatures off, he said.
There is an established link between rainy and cooler weather and hot and drier weather, said Kevin Trenberth, climate analysis chief at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Rainy days means more clouds blocking the sun and more solar heat used to evaporate water, Druyan said.
"I'm sorry for the bad news," Druyan said. "It gets worse everywhere."
Trenberth said the link between dryness and heat works, but he is a little troubled by the computer modeling done by Lynn and Druyan and points out that recently the eastern United States has been wetter and cooler than expected.
A top U.S. climate modeler, Jerry Mahlman, criticized the study as not matching models up correctly and "just sort of whistling in the dark a little bit."
But Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria, editor of the journal Climate but not of this study, praised the paper, saying "it makes perfect sense."
He said it shows yet another "positive feedback" in global warming, where one aspect of climate change makes something else worse and it works like a loop.
"The more we start to understand of the science, the more positive feedbacks we start to find," Weaver said.
Weaver said looking at the map of a hotter eastern United States he can think of one thing: "I like living in Canada."
© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Leonard Druyan, who co-authored the study, says it will not only be much hotter, but less rainy, especially in the summer months, reports CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston.
"Based on our study, the amount of global warming might be even more than previously thought," Druyan, said.
Previous and widely used global warming computer estimates predict too many rainy days, the study says. Because drier weather is hotter, they underestimate how warm it will be east of the Mississippi River, said atmospheric scientists Barry Lynn and Leonard Druyan of Columbia University and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
"Unless we take some strong action to curtail carbon dioxide emissions, it's going to get a lot hotter," said Lynn, now a scientist at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "It's going to be a lot more dangerous for people who are not in the best of health."
The study got mixed reviews from other climate scientists, in part because the eastern United States has recently been wetter and cooler than forecast.
Instead of daily summer highs in the 1990s that averaged in the low to mid 80s Fahrenheit, the eastern United States is in for daily summer highs regularly in the low to mid 90s, the study found. The study only looked at the eastern United States because that was the focus of the funding by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lynn said.
And that's just the eastern United States as a whole. For individual cities, the future looks even hotter.
In the 2080s, the average summer high will probably be 102 degrees in Jacksonville, 100 degrees in Memphis, 96 degrees in Atlanta, and 91 degrees in Chicago and Washington, according to the study published in the peer-reviewed journal Climate.
But every now and then a summer will be drier than normal and that means even hotter days, Lynn said. So when Lynn's computer models spit out simulated results for July 2085 the forecasted temperatures sizzled past uncomfortable into painful. The study showed a map where the average high in the southeast neared 115 and pushed 100 in the northeast. Even Canada flirted with the low to mid 90s.
Many politicians and climate skeptics have criticized computer models as erring on the side of predicting temperatures that are too hot and outcomes that are too apocalyptic with global warming. But Druyan said the problem is most computer models, especially when compared to their predictions of past observations, underestimate how bad global warming is. That's because they see too many rainy days, which tends to cool temperatures off, he said.
There is an established link between rainy and cooler weather and hot and drier weather, said Kevin Trenberth, climate analysis chief at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Rainy days means more clouds blocking the sun and more solar heat used to evaporate water, Druyan said.
"I'm sorry for the bad news," Druyan said. "It gets worse everywhere."
Trenberth said the link between dryness and heat works, but he is a little troubled by the computer modeling done by Lynn and Druyan and points out that recently the eastern United States has been wetter and cooler than expected.
A top U.S. climate modeler, Jerry Mahlman, criticized the study as not matching models up correctly and "just sort of whistling in the dark a little bit."
But Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria, editor of the journal Climate but not of this study, praised the paper, saying "it makes perfect sense."
He said it shows yet another "positive feedback" in global warming, where one aspect of climate change makes something else worse and it works like a loop.
"The more we start to understand of the science, the more positive feedbacks we start to find," Weaver said.
Weaver said looking at the map of a hotter eastern United States he can think of one thing: "I like living in Canada."
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Hey Jimfinster, I've been busy with my real life last night and today.
Re: Intelligent Design and your claim of no evidence... I see evidence of intelligent design in everything I look at. The planet and it's contents are too well designed, to amazing, to incredibly well thought out to have happened by randomness and chance. Randomness and chance create chaos, not systems and organization.
So was the car you're driving (and I'm sure it's a Prius ;), was that the result of randomness and chance? Of course not. But your body is a million times more incredible and amazing than a Prius (I'm sure your wife thinks so too) but yet you won't consider that as evidence of an intelligent designer?
Your position takes more faith.
...
"Something can't come from nothing."
Then where did the Creator come from?
A believer in Intelligent Design, hmmm?
With regard to global warming you do not believe something despite overwhelming evidence. With regard to Intelligent Design, you believe something despite a total lack of evidence. I find that very interesting...
That is too funny! I too thought that the reason that the publish button wasn't working was because CBS had banned me from posting. A few days ago some jerk was being VERY crude so I said something to him that was crude. (not even close to being as crude as him) Anyways, the next thing I know, his and my comments were gone. I figured someone reported our comments and that I was now banned from posting.
jim, I believe in intelligent design. I see it in things like BMWs, Mercedes, the Space Shuttle, and in Nature.
Chance and randomness does not explain the incredible planet we live on.
I am astonished at how "Smart and accurate they are".
Professional skeptics like Spence are such a small group that one becomes familiar with them. I would say there are about 10 skeptics that regularly get interviewed on the neocon venues like Limbaugh. Of course, the neocons ignore all the other thousands of climate scientists that don't take the neocon position...
Dr. Roy Spence is also a big proponent of Intelligent Design. Enough said on his credibility...
Yes, you are right.
And I think it's possible we are getting more storms due to the climate warming.
I will keep my BBQ of "medium" instead of "high" tonight just to be safe.
But we can agree that there has always been extreme weather events. Whether or not current events are tied to global warming/climate change, I can't say. Your point is good, in that now we have 24/7 news, which is a big change from the past. With the huge increases in human population, there are also more people in harms way for any given storm event...