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Global Warming Study Predicts Wild Ride
Warm nights are crucial because Chicago's 1995 heat wave demonstrated that after three straight hot nights, people start dying, Meehl said. However, heat wave deaths are decreasing in the United States because society has learned to adapt better, using air conditioning, noted University of Alabama at Huntsville atmospheric sciences professor John Christy. He is one of a minority of climate scientists who downplay the seriousness of global warming.
Similarly, the days when the temperature drops below freezing will plummet worldwide. That's not necessarily a good thing, because fewer frost days will likely bring dramatic change in wildlife, especially bug infestation, Tebaldi said.
  A man walks with a dog along a dry cracked reservoir bed in Alcora, eastern Spain in this 2005 file photo. The world _ especially the Western United States, the Mediterranean region and Brazil _ will likely suffer more extended droughts, heavy rainfalls and longer heat waves over the next century because of global warming, a new study forecasts. (AP Photo/ Fernando Bustamante, FILE) (Fernando Bustamante - AP) Special Report
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"It's a disruption of the equilibrium that's been going for many centuries," Tebaldi said. But she noted that a lengthier growing season in general is good.
"This notion of the greening of the planet ... generally is a positive benefit," Christy said.
Christy, who did not participate in the study but acknowledges that global warming is real and man-made, said an increase in nighttime low temperatures makes much more sense than the rain-and-drought forecasts of the paper.
One of the larger changes in precipitation predicted is in the intensity of rain and snowfall. That means, Tebaldi said, "when it rains, it rains more" even if it doesn't rain as often.
Tebaldi's assessment jibes with the National Climatic Data Center's tracking of extreme events in the United States, said David Easterling, chief of the center's scientific services. Easterling's group has created a massive climate extreme index that measures the weather in America. Last year, the United States experienced the second most extreme year in 95 years; the worst year was in 1998.
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On the Net
"Going to the Extremes" study:
http:/
U.S. government's climate extreme index:
