Models predict 'wild ride' of extreme weather

WASHINGTON - 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.

But the prediction of a future of nasty extreme weather also includes fewer freezes and a longer growing season.

Titled "Going to the Extremes," the study details what nine of the world's top computer models predict for the lurching of climate at its most extreme.

"It's going to be a wild ride, especially for specific regions," said lead author Claudia Tebaldi, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a federally funded academic group.

"It's the extremes, not the averages, that cause the most damage to society and to many ecosystems," she noted. "We now have the first model-based consensus on how the risk of dangerous heat waves, intense rains, and other kinds of extreme weather will change in the next century."

Hot spots and rain drops
Tebaldi pointed to the U.S. West, Mediterranean nations and Brazil as "hot spots" that will get extremes at their worst, according to the computer models. The modeling assumed a continued increase in greenhouse gases, which many scientists tie to global warming.

And some places, such as the Pacific Northwest, are predicted to get a strange double whammy of longer dry spells punctuated by heavier rainfall.

As the world warms, there will be more rain likely in the tropical Pacific Ocean, and that will change the air flow for certain areas, much like El Nino weather oscillations now do, said co-author Gerald Meehl, a top computer modeler at the research center. Those changes will affect the U.S. West, Australia and Brazil, even though El Nino is on South America's eastern coast.

For the Mediterranean, the issue has more to do with rainfall in the tropical Atlantic Ocean changing air currents, he said.

"Extreme events are the kinds of things that have the biggest impacts, not only on humans, but on mammals and ecosystems," Meehl said. The study, to be published in the December issue of the peer-reviewed journal Climatic Change, "gives us stronger and more compelling evidence that these changes in extremes are more likely."

Models agree on four areas
The researchers took 10 international agreed-upon indices that measure climate extremes — five that deal with temperature and five with precipitation — and ran computer models for the world through the year 2099.

The models agreed that by 2080-2099:

• The number of extremely warm nights and the length of heat waves will increase significantly over nearly all land areas across the globe.
• Most areas above 40 degrees north will see a "significant" jump in the number of days with heavy rain, defined as 0.40 inches or more. This includes the northern tier of U.S. states, Canada, and most of Europe.
• Dry spells could lengthen significantly across the U.S. West, southern Europe, eastern Brazil, and several other areas.
• The average growing season could increase significantly across most of North America and Eurasia.

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