More Temperature Extremes And Dramatic Precipitation May Define Climatic Future
Pastor Dale Morgan
More Temperature Extremes And Dramatic Precipitation May Define Climatic
Future*
Weather extremes are often economically damaging, spelling financial
losses in agriculture and infrastructure as well as affecting energy
demand and human health risks.
Lubbock TX (SPX) Oct 23, 2006
The summer heat waves, prolonged droughts and heavy rainfall events that
have occurred across much of the U.S. and Europe over the past few years
are a preview of what we can expect in the future thanks to climate
change, according to one Texas Tech University researcher.
Katharine Hayhoe, a research associate professor in the Department of
Geosciences at Texas Tech, says the amount of change likely to occur
will depend on the amount of emissions of heat-trapping gases from human
activities.
The study documenting the forecast for the planet's future, a product of
collaborations with three other researchers from the National Center for
Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. and the Australian Bureau of
Meteorology, will appear in the December issue of the journal Climatic
Change.
The researchers studied only extreme temperature and precipitation
conditions for the future - meaning the very cold and hot days, the dry
periods and the heavy downpours - and found that these weather events in
the future are likely to become even more extreme, thanks to carbon
dioxide emissions.
"As temperatures warm, we're likely to have more frequent heat waves,
which can affect our health and energy use," Hayhoe said. "We also found
that warming temperatures will mean more extreme precipitation events
and more frequent dry periods across much of the Northern Hemisphere."
Weather extremes are often economically damaging, spelling financial
losses in agriculture and infrastructure as well as affecting energy
demand and human health risks.
"It's the extremes, not the averages, that cause the most damage to
society and to many ecosystems," says NCAR scientist Claudia Tebaldi,
lead author for the report. "We now have the first model-based consensus
on how the risk of dangerous heat waves, intense rains, and other kinds
of extreme weather will change in the next century."
Hayhoe said this is one of the first studies to draw on the extensive
and sophisticated climate modeling that will form the basis of the
upcoming Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change. The IPCC is a commission established by the United
Nations that assesses the latest scientific, technical and socioeconomic
research to understand the risks of human-induced climate change.