Over on NASA’s Earth Observatory News site there’s an article about how much warmer summers could get. They’re talking about an increase in average summertime temperatures in the Eastern United States of 10 degrees Fahrenheit by 2080.

That’s pretty miserable, especially if humidity stays about the same, which they didn’t specify.

I live on the West Coast, and they didn’t talk about what summers would be like here. Where I live it is not uncommon to have days over 100 degrees, and that’s pretty miserable. They’re talking about Chicago, Washington and Atlanta averaging between 100 and 110 degrees during July and August by 2080.
The article goes on about the prediction model they used and how it is improved over previously used models. I won’t get into that here – read it if that interests you.

Obviously, it’s just a prediction based on a model, and who knows if it will come true. Who knows if anything can be done about it. But this is the kind of thing we need to be preparing for. This model was based on the “business as usual” scenario of carbon dioxide production.

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