Long-term forecast: Hotter and hotter
Friday, August 31st, 2007
By Chris Fitzsimon
Wade Rawlins, Staff Writer Global warming will mean more years like North Carolina’s warmer-than-average 2006, an environmental advocacy group said Thursday.
Environment North Carolina examined temperature patterns and found that Raleigh, Greensboro and Asheville all experienced maximum temperatures in 2006 of 2 degrees or more above average.
"Throw out the record books, because global warming is raising temperatures in North Carolina and across the country," said Margaret Hartzell, field organizer for Environment North Carolina. The group examined data from 2000 to 2006 and compared them with average temperatures over a 30-year period from 1971 to 2000.
The findings add to recent conclusions that global warming is affecting natural weather variation, but scientists caution it’s too early to blame global warming on this year’s string of blazing hot August days in North Carolina.
In February, an international panel of scientists concluded that the evidence of global warming is "unequivocal" and that much of the temperature change in the past 50 years has likely been caused by human activities such as burning coal and oil. Those activities raised the levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide gases in the atmosphere, creating the greenhouse effect. (more…)
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