A U.S. government report released this week paints a dire picture when it comes to climate change, with New York and New England forecast to experience heat waves, heavy rain and coastal and river flooding.
The Third National Climate Assessment[click here to read the full report]finds the Northeast has experienced a greater recent increase in extreme precipitation than any other region in the country. Prepared by 300 leading scientists and experts, the assessment says every section of the country is already at risk. Jessica Spaccio is a climatologist with the Northeast Regional Climate Center in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University. She says people should pay attention to the climate change papers. "They're estimates of what the future will be. We don't have an exact number what exactly will happen, but based on our missions and these projections, these are kind of our best guess for the future. We do need to think about what we can do to prepare for the different future that we're going to start seeing."
The assessment found that between 1958 and 2010, the Northeast saw more than a 70 percent increase in the amount of precipitation in very heavy weather events. Experts like Assessment co-author Kim Knowlton of the Natural Resources Defense Council believe Superstorm Sandy was just a hint of things to come. "... in the future, because of sea level rise even lesser storms – storms not as intense as Sandy – will cause coastal flooding."
Jessica Spaccio points out that Irene, Lee and Sandy are fresh in people's minds. "It's something we want to continue to be aware of - and better our infrastructure in good working order and try and maintain our wastewater facilities."
Then there's the big warm-up. Spaccio says as temperatures increase over time, people will take notice. "We will have interannual variability where one year it's cooler and one year it's warmer that happen naturally, but climate change is enhancing this so we get winters that are a little bit warmer than they would have been, or maybe there's more days that we thaw out in between the cold days, things like that."
The assessment projects temperatures in the U.S. will increase another two to four degrees Fahrenheit in the next few decades, prompting more frequent extreme weather events. "We've already seen warming. So we're gonna see this continue. We'll see maybe a few extra above 90 degree days and longer heat waves and things like that. Spaccio concedes there are also unpredictable events, however unlikely, in other parts of the world that could change climate, including volcanic eruptions and meteor strikes.
Kim Knowlton cautions the report predicts an uptick in deadly heat waves. "Heat-related mortality could increase another 20 percent by the 2050s and double by the 2080s. That’s really cause for concern in cities like New York City, a lot of other cities across the country."
Knowlton says the report confirms the average temperature in the U.S. has risen by about one-and-a-half degrees since 1895, and 80 percent of that increase has happened in the past three decades.
