Down here in Hays/Travis Counties we've had more
days with temperatures over 100º so far in June
than lower than 100º
and it isn't even summer yet. Extreme drought.
Our well was producing silty water yesterday due
to the aquifer draw
down. The deer are starving. Some are on the
porch looking for food. A few hundred miles north
of here atmospheric conditions are exactly
opposite with severe storms and widespread floods.

Tim

Report on Climate Predicts Extremes
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/19/AR2008061902171.\
html?hpid=topnews
More Droughts Likely in North America
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 20, 2008; A02

As greenhouse-gas emissions rise, North America
is likely to experience more droughts and
excessive heat in some regions even as intense
downpours and hurricanes pound others more often,
according to a report issued yesterday by the
U.S. Climate Change Science Program.

The 162-page study, which was led by the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, provides
the most comprehensive assessment yet of how
global warming has helped to transform the
climate of the United States and Canada over the
past 50 years -- and how it may do so in the
future.

Coming at a time when record flooding is ravaging
the Midwest, the new report paints a grim
scenario in which severe weather will exact a
heavy toll. The report warned that extreme
weather events "are among the most serious
challenges to society in coping with a changing
climate."

While the Southwest is likely to face even more
intense droughts, the scientists wrote, heavy
downpours will become more frequent in some other
parts of the country because of increased water
vapor in the air.

"This report addresses one of the most frequently
asked questions about global warming: What will
happen to weather and climate extremes?" said one
of the report's two co-chairs, Thomas R. Karl,
who directs NOAA's National Climatic Data Center
in Asheville, N.C.. He added that the report,
which synthesizes the findings of more than 100
academic papers, "concludes that we are now
witnessing and will increasingly experience more
extreme weather and climate events."

The authors found that the last decade has seen
fewer cold snaps than any other 10-year period in
the historical record dating back to 1895. Under
a middle-range scenario of future greenhouse-gas
emissions, climate models indicate that by
mid-century, extremely hot days that now occur
only once every 20 years will occur every three
years.

Richard Moss, vice president and managing
director for climate change at the World Wildlife
Fund, said in an interview that the report was
prepared by "an A-list of authors" and is "really
frightening."

In a conference call with reporters, Karl and the
other co-chair, Gerald A. Meehl, senior scientist
at the National Center for Atmospheric Research,
said there is no doubt that human-generated
heat-trapping gases have helped intensify both
the Southwest's current drought and heavy
downpours, which have been increasing at a rate
three times that of average precipitation over
the past century.

"That's a certainty," Karl said. "People aren't
questioning whether there's been an increase in
heavy downpours."

By the end of the century, he added, models
predict that intense bouts of precipitation that
might have occurred once every 20 years will take
place every five years.

The researchers, from both the federal and
private sectors, reached more tentative
conclusions about the connection between
greenhouse-gas emissions and hurricanes.

The report noted that the intensity of hurricanes
and tropical storms, as measured by an index that
combines wind strength, duration and frequency,
has shown a "substantial" increase since 1970 and
that "there has been a strong statistical
connection between tropical Atlantic sea surface
temperatures and Atlantic hurricane activity."
But the scientists said this suggestion of a
connection to human activity is not conclusive.

NOAA research meteorologist Thomas R. Knutson,
who contributed to the report and recently
published an article in the journal Nature saying
that it is too early to attribute more intense
hurricane activity to a detectable human
influence, said the synthesis reflects the
current disagreement among scientists on the
question of hurricanes.

"This is a report that is a consensus document,
where you have a number of authors who may not
agree on all things," Knutson said.
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