Feb 17, 2012; 10:35 AM ET
Assuming it will remain business as usual in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, episodes of extreme summertime heat will actually be the norm by mid-century in the Lower 48 states, according to new research from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The research team compared temperature data from 1975-2000 with similar data from 1950-1974 and determined that these observations along with results from running 16 climate models shows that episodes of extreme summertime heat that was once rare will occur in more than 50% of summers by mid-century across the Lower 48 states.
Perhaps a future population and real estate boom for Alaska or Atlantic Canada??? Just a thought.
The team also performed a statistical analysis showing that the increase in rare summertime temperatures seen from 1975-2000 are very unlikely to have occurred through chance weather variations, such as El Nino or La Nina.
By mid-century, extreme summertime temperatures are are expected to occur in at least 70% of the summers in the lower 48, compared to the historical average that is closer to 5%.
Excerpt from the LLNL news release.........
"The observed increase in the frequency of previously rare summertime-average temperatures is more consistent with the consequences of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations than with the effects of natural climate variability," said LLNL's Phil Duffy, who is the lead author of a report in a recent edition of the journal, Climatic Change. "It is extremely unlikely that the observed increase has happened through chance alone."
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