Research shows a steady climb in temperature and precipitation
By Chloe Bennett
An annual international climate summit in Dubai is wrapping up its first week as leaders discuss whether to “phase out” or “phase down” the use of fossil fuels. Governments, nonprofit organizations and members of the fossil fuel industry are in attendance at the United Nations Conference of the Parties this year (COP28) for discussions on climate solutions.
Scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change state that the world must cut about 50% of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and completely transition from fossil fuels by 2050 to mitigate the effects of climate change. But reaching that goal is becoming less likely as emission levels grow.
To understand some of how climate change will affect the Adirondacks, the Explorer looked at data published by Columbia University researchers this fall. Key findings include rising temperatures and increased precipitation:
Using climate models, different scenarios of future greenhouse gas concentrations and past research, the scientists found that the park could experience different jumps in temperature. If the annual median temperature increases as projected, it will rise by more than 9 degrees by the year 2100 to a base of about 50 degrees. Under a high estimate, the scientists found, the park could experience a rise of more than 15 degrees by 2100 to an annual median of 55.7 degrees.
Indian Lake, Lake Placid and Wanakena were among the focus locations for the study. Columbia researchers looked at the Champlain Valley separately and projected slightly higher temperatures and precipitation. Data for the decades of 2020 and 2090 were excluded from the report because of inadequate data, the researchers said.
Warming temperatures during the winter season are rising quickly in New York with a rate that is nearly double that of the other seasons. While heat waves are expected to increase, cooling days, defined by temperatures at or below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, are likely to decrease.
Across the Northeast, precipitation amounts are expected to rise as warmer air holds more moisture. Below is a median estimate of the change in precipitation percentages in the park.
The report is one part of the New York State Climate Impacts Assessment that is expected to detail projected ecological changes in the state, including in the Adirondack Park. The full report was estimated to be released in early 2023 but has yet to be published.
To read the report and review the data, click here.
It all goes in cycles or we would all be living on a ice sheet
Dear Jeff,
I’m sure you have analyzed the mass amounts of climate data available to come to that conclusion?
Seasons are indeed cyclical. Maybe a lesson is in order? Winter cold, Summer hot. Hot melts cold, magic!
I’m always curious why people care so much to fight the science of climate change. What do you lose by caring for your environment and planet?
It’s the hypocrisy of the elites, world leaders and the like, telling us what to do when they fly to conferences and do all the things that pollute, when they could do it all by zoom. Remember masks and lockdowns, the elite still went out to eat, without masks, and gathered less than 6 feet apart. This is why I and many others have such distrust of the “scientists”
Reducing emissions and carbon credits are the biggest scam pulled off ever. Europe has committed economic suicide , and the stupidity of killing off their dairy industry to reduce methane cow farts is tragic.
Most Americans dont know that Texas was once under a great inland sea and has the fossils to prove it. 15,000 years ago Canada and the Great Lakes states were under glaciers and ice sheets one mile thick. 10,000 years ago NY state was home to woolly mammoths, mastodons, woolly rhinoceros and much more. The shabby public school education America fist-feeds our youth has all but made critical thinking extinct. In a couple of hundred years people will look back on this madness.
Critical thinking, yes. As in, which is more likely: that scientists the world over are misunderstanding the climate, and/or working with governments and big businesses to defraud the global public in some vague, nefarious scheme, OR, that expertise exists, and the people studying climate and atmosphere dynamics understand more than you do about it, including that industrial activity is changing our climate?
https://youtu.be/NQSBn50o_8M?feature=shared
methinks we are somewhere in the middle…
I live in the Adirondacks, when I was a kid
( years 1960 – 1965), the temperature during the summer were average 89°F – 110°, that was common. As a adult how often do we even have 85°F. ? The earth is a living, breathing object. One can not control it. The only thing we should be worried about is how humans are polluting this planet.
It’s too bad that I won’t be around long enough to enjoy warmer Adirondack winters.
Its more like over logging. They are clear cutting 10,000s acre of land. Western ADKs are hit very hard. Don’t buy into this climate nonesense.