Turning Up the Heat

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that Global Warming has long been one of my areas of interest. The following story is of big interest for people like me who live in Florida; maybe for you as well.

NASA Study: Eastern US to Get Hotter

WASHINGTON — 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.
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."

So how hot is hot?

Instead of daily summer highs in the 1990s that averaged in the low to mid 80s Fahrenheit, he 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.

It's even worse if you live in the city ...

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.

So basically, we're getting Saudi Arabian weather without the oil. But don't worry -- once the ice caps melt and the sea levels rise 20 feet, much of Florida will be underwater. That's dark humor, folks.

We're seeing more and more studies like this. Well, Exxon still has that scientist who debunks global warming, right? If it comforts you, listen to him instead.

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