but its a dry heat

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Study Predicts Southwest Summers Will Be Hotter

 

December 28, 2005 — By Associated Press

TUCSON, Ariz. — A study billed by its researchers as the most detailed

projection yet of climate change says hotter, drier Southwestern summers will

become a reality by the late 21st century if human-caused global warming

continues.

 

The number of extremely hot summer days -- those in the top 5 percent of the

105- to 112-degree range -- could jump 560 percent by late in the century from

today, according to the Purdue University study.

 

The study also says heat waves would last longer, up to 15 days each from

northern Mexico into Nevada and Utah. Summer rainfall, which can cause severe

flooding but also nourishes rivers, streams and aquifers that provide water to

people and wildlife, would fall.

 

The predicted changes are large enough to substantially disrupt the U.S. economy

and its roads, bridges and other public infrastructure, said Noah Diffenbaugh, a

Purdue assistant professor who headed the research team behind the study.

 

Diffenbaugh said the study targets the period 2071-85 and assumes the

temperature and rainfall changes would occur gradually, starting before then.

 

Two climate specialists at the University of Arizona agree the Purdue study is

one of the most thorough of its type, but they say it's still not the last word

on the regional effects of global warming.

 

Jonathan Overpeck, director of the UA's Institute for the Study of Planet Earth,

said the study is one of the first to use really good global and regional

computer models together to look at possible climate change during the next 90

years.

 

For several years, scientific researchers have disagreed on whether global

warming would mean more or less rain in the Southwest, though they generally

agree the weather here will get hotter.

 

Even if rainfall increases, however, researchers often have warned that the

warmer temperatures could cause snowfall to melt more quickly. That would bring

rainfall runoff into the region's rivers earlier -- at a time when some

reservoirs may not be equipped for it.

 

The Purdue study predicted little overall, year-round rainfall change across

much of the Southwest.

 

Source: Associated Press

 

 

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