Stanford study projects that intense heat waves are likely to occur as many as five times between 2020 and 2029 over areas of the western and central U.S. “Exceptionally long heat waves and other hot events could become commonplace in the United States in the next 30 years [2010 – 2039], according to a new study by Stanford University climate scientists. ‘Using a large suite of climate model experiments, we see a clear emergence of much more intense, hot conditions in the U.S. within the next three decades,’ said Noah Diffenbaugh, an assistant professor of environmental Earth system science at Stanford and the lead author of the study. . . . The [study, Intensification of hot extremes in the United States], took two years to complete and is co-authored by Moetasim Ashfaq, a former Stanford postdoctoral fellow now at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The study comes on the heels of a recent NASA report that concluded that the previous decade, January 2000 to December 2009, was the warmest on record. . . . ‘This was an unprecedented experiment,’ Diffenbaugh said. ‘With the high-resolution [RegCM3] climate model, we can analyze geographic quadrants that are only 15.5 miles [25 kilometers] to a side. No one has ever completed this kind of climate analysis at such a high resolution.’ The results were surprising. According to the climate models, an intense heat wave – equal to the longest on record from 1951 to 1999 [a period of 48 years] – is likely to occur as many as five times between 2020 and 2029 [a period of 9 years] over areas of the western and central United States. . . . Besides harming human health and agriculture, these hot, dry conditions could lead to more droughts and wildfires in the near future, he said. And many of these climate change impacts could occur within the next two decades [2010-2030] -- years before the planet is likely to reach the 2-degree C threshold targeted by some governments and climate experts, [Diffenbaugh] added.” (Mark Shwartz, communications manager, Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University, “Heat waves and extremely high temperatures could be commonplace in the U.S
Posted on: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 17:21:36 +0000
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