Скачать или смотреть Mapping unprecedented climate future of cities—Matt Fitzpatrick interview—Radio Ecoshock 2019-04-10

Would you like to move your city to somewhere warmer? No need. According to new science, that different climate will probably come to you. By the end of this century, some American cities will experience climates never seen before.

Our tour guide is the lead author of a new paper published in Nature. Dr. Matt Fitzpatrick leads the Fitzpatrick Lab Global Change & Biodiversity, at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Appalachian Lab. He is listed as the “Principal Investigator,” with a team of scientists, and over 50 papers published.

Show by Radio Ecoshock, reposted under CC License. Episode details at https://www.ecoshock.org/2019/04/rebe...

Stop Fossil Fuels researches and disseminates effective strategies and tactics to halt fossil fuel combustion as fast as possible. Learn more at https://stopfossilfuels.org

SHOW DETAILS
“Within the lifetime of children living today, the climate of many regions is projected to change from the familiar to conditions unlike those experienced in the same place by their parents, grandparents, or perhaps any generation in millenia.”

On February 12, 2019, Matt and Robert Dunn published the paper “Contemporary climatic analogs for 540 North American urban areas in the late 21st century“. They also gave America a tool to see the climate destination of their city. Find that interactive map at tinyurl.com/urbanclimate . Their research covered about 75% of the population of the United States, and around half the population of Canada.

In just one example from data in this paper, for Washington D.C. the annual average high temperature would be ten degrees F. warmer by 2080 under the current trajectory of RCP8.5. Washington would also get an extra ten inches of rain as an annual average. It’s going to be a lot hotter and wetter in the nation’s capital, where politicians currently do nothing about climate change except empower fossil fuel companies to make it worse.

In the paper we find:

“Put another way, by the 2080’s climate of cities in the northeast will tend to feel more like the humid subtropical climates typical of parts of the Midwest or southeastern U.S. today (warmer and wetter in all seasons), whereas the climates of western cities are expected to become more like those of the desert Southwest or southern California (warmer in all seasons, with changes in the amount and seasonal distribution of precipitation.”

THE PATHWAY MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE
“On average, the geographic distance from each urban area to its best contemporary climatic analog was nearly twice as large for RCP8.5 (849.8 km) as compared to RCP4.5 (514.4 km). In other words, the average urban dweller in the United States would have to drive nearly 1000 km to get to a climate like that likely to be experienced (under RCP8.5) in their city.”

In the end, it might seem like AMERICAN CITIES ARE MOVING on the map. That is another way of looking at the impacts of climate change. Plus, remember these big changes are just what can happen on our current path by 2080. Warming will continue for centuries after.

EUROPEAN LISTENERS LOOK HERE
A similar map for European cities was published by Guillaume Rohat, et al. in 2018: “Characterization of European cities’ climate shift an exploratory study based on climate analogues“.

READ MORE ABOUT THE UNPRECEDENTED CLIMATES COMING TO CITIES
“USA Cities ‘Will Experience Climates with No Modern Equivalent‘” in the Daily Galaxy and “Climate of North American cities will shift hundreds of miles in one generation” in Science Daily.

OTHER AREAS THAT MATT RESEARCHES
Much of Matt’s work is based on the study of “phenology“. This is defined as: “the study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena, especially in relation to climate and plant and animal life.” In another topic, I thought global warming was developing too fast for evolution to help species cope. But Matt and his colleagues study genetic adaptation.

I worry about this under-reported story from Matt’s work: “Aquatic ecosystems are considered among the most vulnerable and endangered in the world, with the projected future extinction rate of freshwater fauna rivaling estimates for tropical rainforest species.” We never talk about that or hear about that in the media. How serious is the freshwater extinction situation?