Last night, eating dinner at the Chinese place down the street, I had a window-side table where I could watch the sleet and pouring rain. It was all so wintry and miserable that I wondered if maybe we’d fixed that whole global warming thing.
But then—dang it—this morning I found a first-rate new report documenting how climate change is affecting the West. And unlike my idle speculations last night, it’s not based on anecdote or wishful thinking: it’s carefully researched, drawing on dozens of scienitifc studies and scores of hard data sources. The upshot, if you must know, is that the impacts are more profound here than in the East—and that we’re already feeling them.
This map really says it all:
Here’s the full pdf: Hotter and Drier: The West’s Changed Climate. It’s a joint venture of the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Richard
And then compare the weather map with this one showing water problems in the West by 2025. The weather will not make water problems any easier to deal with.