Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Snowpocolipse in a Warming World


Dr.Jeff Masters puts it in context in his Wunderblog post: It’s not hard at all to get temperatures cold enough for snow in a world experiencing global warming. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. the globe warmed 0.74°C (1.3°F) over the past 100 years. There will still be colder than average winters in a world that is experiencing warming, with plenty of opportunities for snow. The more difficult ingredient for producing a record snowstorm is the requirement of near-record levels of moisture. Global warming theory predicts that global precipitation will increase, and that heavy precipitation events—the ones most likely to cause flash flooding—will also increase. This occurs because as the climate warms, evaporation of moisture from the oceans increases, resulting in more water vapor in the air.

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