Climate Change: Effects on North America


In discussing the effects of climate change, I am focused on the effects on the developing world because, quite frankly, I think that the moral and theological implications are greatest when we deal with the poor--who did little to cause the problem, but who will face the most dire consequences.

Still, I also aim to influence my fellow North Americans to deal realistically with the problem, and was therefore pleased that a group of scientists will attempt to predict the local impacts of climate change on North America:


There is no question now that the climate is changing on a global scale," says Takle, an Iowa State University professor of geological and atmospheric sciences and agronomy. "The evidence is so overwhelming."

But what does that mean on a smaller scale? How are greenhouse gases changing the climate in North America? In the United States? In Iowa?

After all, "You and I are not affected by a few tenths of a degree of temperature change on a global scale," Takle said.

Takle is working with Bill Gutowski, an Iowa State professor of geological and atmospheric sciences, and Ray Arritt, an Iowa State professor of agronomy, to find some answers about regional climate change.

The three have worked together on climate studies for 15 years. And now they've joined an international group of scientists collaborating on the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program. The assessment program is led by Linda Mearns, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. The National Science Foundation is funding the Iowa State work on the project with a $353,000 grant.

The project calls for six teams of researchers (four from the United States, including the Iowa State group, one from Canada and one from Europe) to run their own regional climate models using at least two sets of identical data from two research groups studying global climate change. The research groups will see what their models say about regional climate change and compare the results. Ultimately, the researchers will create data sets that will help them study the impacts of climate change on a continental or even statewide scale.



Read it all here.

(The image above shows how much daily summer high temperatures are expected to increase from the 1990s to the 2040s, according to a climate model prepared by the Iowa State University Regional Climate Modeling Laboratory.(Credit: Image courtesy of Iowa State University))

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Giles Fraser on Gay Marriage

Image
The Rev. Gileas Fraser offers thoughtful piece on gay marriage on BBC Radio this morning: Back in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as the Book of Common Prayer was being put together, marriage was said to be for three purposes: First, It was ordained for the procreation of children … Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication .. Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. How do these three concerns relate to the prospect of gay marriage? The third priority insists that marriage is designed to bring human beings into loving and supportive relationships. Surely no one can deny that homosexual men and women are in as much need of loving and supportive relationships as anybody else. And equally deserving of them too. This one seems pretty clear. The second priority relates to the encouragement of monogamy. The Archbishop of Canterbury himself has rig
Read more

Religious Map of United States

Image
This map shows which of eight major Christian denominations has a plurality in the United States, county by county. the map obviously does not capture the full story given the rich diversity of Christian denominations in the United States, but it does show much of the regionalization of the major denominations. The map and analysis can be found here . Hat Tip to my friend Jim .
Read more

New Climate Change Study

What a coincidence. Yesterday, I blogged about the James Dobson et al "We Get It" effort to deny climate change. Yesterday, NASA scientists issued a new report showing a strong causal link between human activity and climate change. Here is the Science Daily report: A vast array of physical and biological systems across the earth are being affected by warming temperatures caused by humans, says a new analysis of information not previously assembled all in one spot. The effects on living things include earlier leafing of trees and plants over many regions; movements of species to higher latitudes and altitudes in the northern hemisphere; changes in bird migrations in Europe, North America and Australia; and shifting of the oceans' plankton and fish from cold- to warm-adapted communities. "Humans are influencing climate through increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and the warming world is causing impacts on physical and biological systems attributable at the global scal
Read more