Last month was the hottest month ever recorded in human history. By 2100, children living today will remember it as one of the coolest in their memories.
In just a few decades, huge swaths of the Southern United States, including Arizona, Oklahoma, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas are going to be miserable places to live for a good portion of every year. The New York Times and Climate Central created a series of maps (including the one above) depicting the anticipated temperature increase from 2016 through 2100 throughout the continental U.S., assuming greenhouse gas emission trends continue unabated (for those only concerned with the effects throughout their own life span, the Times’ analysis also includes data anticipated for 2060). The projections are based on the World Climate Research Programme.
This map provides a glimpse of our future if nothing is done to slow climate change. By the end of the century, the number of 100-degree days will skyrocket, making working or playing outdoors unbearable, and sometimes deadly. The effects on our health, air quality, food and water supplies will get only worse if we don’t drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions right away.
Dallas Texas, for example, will experience more or less continual daily high temperatures over 95 degrees for over four months out of the year.
For purposes of comparison, here is the map of 100 degree temperatures experienced more than 50 days per year for the continental U.S., based on data collected from 1991-2010:
The Times’ authors calculated how many days per year major U.S. cities are projected to endure > 95 degree temperatures by 2100. From 1991 to 2010, Boston experienced approximately one 95 +Degrees day per year. In 2100 it will experience 28 days of >95 degrees per year.
Atlanta Georgia experienced, on average, 7 days hotter than 95 degrees, per year. In 2100 Atlanta is projected to experience 94 days per year greater than 95 degrees.
Kansas City Missouri experienced 9 such days per year from 1991-2010. In 2100 it will experience 90.
Of course, these are just temperatures, or, as the Times characterizes this article, “Data points.” This “data” doesn’t even begin to capture what is projected to happen in terms of insect-borne diseases, fresh water depletion, and food shortages when the now-abundant staple agriculture and crops that sustain our economic prosperity and lifestyles are unable to adapt to these new climatic paradigms, and simply won’t grow, or whither and die before they can be harvested.
But by then we’ll have it all figured out, right?
Not if we keep electing these people.