Report Warns of a Much Warmer Northeast
Effects Could Be Disastrous, Says Two-Year Study
[RSB: This isn't dire compared to the truth]

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 12, 2007; A04

People in Philadelphia would swelter through as many as 30 days with temperatures higher than 100 degrees each summer. The Northeastern ski industry, except for western Maine, would probably go out of business. And spruce and hemlock forests -- as well as songbirds such as the oriole -- would all but disappear from to the Canadian border.

These are among the conclusions of a two-year study by the public interest group on the effects of global warming in the Northeast if current greenhouse gas emission patterns worldwide continue unabated. Winters would be on average 8 to 12 degrees higher by the end of the century, and summers 6 to 14 degrees higher. [RSB only for a few years or months before getting hotter faster!!!!]

Given those conditions, the group said in a report released yesterday, the environment of the Northeast would be transformed, and cities such as , and would be regularly subject to disastrous flooding.

"The bad news is that the character of the Northeast will change dramatically under the business-as-usual scenario," said Peter Frumhoff of the scientists' group and one of the report's lead authors. "But on the other side, we say that the worst of the damage can be mitigated if we act soon."

The report -- the work of more than 50 top university and government-based researchers -- is one of numerous efforts to localize the potential effects of global warming. Frumhoff was also the lead author on the impact and mitigation report by the , the world's leading group of climatologists.

] have argued that the effects of global warming would be positive as well as negative, and Frumhoff acknowledged that there would be advantages to a warmer Northeast. Some farmers, for instance, would have a longer growing season, and residents in more northern areas might need less fuel in the winter.

But overall, he said, the effect would be overwhelmingly disruptive and costly. [RSB: But God is the Economy!] Even under the best-case emission-lowering scenario, global warming would cause unprecedented damage to the coastline and would result in enormous expenditures to maintain and replace roads and other infrastructure. In a worst-case scenario, apple orchards would wither, and lobstermen south of and cod fishermen plying the Georges Bank would lose their livelihoods.

Because of the rising temperatures, the Northeast would be susceptible to longer and more severe droughts because of the increased evaporation of rainfall. In a similar finding, scientists wrote in the journal Science in April that long-term droughts would probably become common in the American Southwest as the planet warms.

Some of the changes are already inevitable, the report says, because greenhouse gases emitted today stay in the atmosphere for decades. Nonetheless, it says that a low-emission alternative is achievable and would leave the Northeast with a similar climate.

It would not be easy, because richer nations would have to cut their carbon dioxide emissions by mid-century to 80 percent below 2000 levels, and developing nations would have to make deep cuts, too.

But the new report, which was peer-reviewed and will be published in the journal Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, points to efforts by many Northeastern states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as a sign that the worst scenarios can be avoided. Most have joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the first multi-state, market-based plan to reduce harmful emissions from power plants, and have mandated increases in the use of alternative energy sources and reductions in automobile tailpipe emissions.

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CMD:REFSNEW
10-20-2007 @ 07:24:20
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