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- NBC's Robert Hager reports on the first "national
assessment" of global warming scenarios for the United States.
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- "Yet For the nation as a whole, direct economic
impacts are likely to be modest," concludes the report, which is based
on computer models and historical data, and "American society would
likely be able to adapt to most of the impacts," although "particular
strategies and costs [are] not known."
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- "Climate Change Impacts on the United States,"
scheduled for public release today after four years of preparation, has
an ample array of ominous projections:
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- Average temperatures will probably rise 5 to 10 degrees
Fahrenheit Ø nearly twice the projected warming for the planet as
a whole Ø prompting more summer urban heat waves and gentler winters
across the nation.
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- MANY ECOSYSTEMS TO SUFFER
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- Agricultural production will likely surge, and forests
will probably flourish, thanks to the fertilizing effect of more carbon
dioxide in the air. But many long-suffering ecosystems, such as alpine
meadows, coral reefs, coastal wetlands and Alaskan permafrost, will likely
deteriorate further. Some may disappear altogether.
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- Snowpack will probably diminish by 50 percent on average,
while winter rains increase, bringing 60 to 100 percent more showers to
much of Southern California and the parched Southwest.
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- Total precipitation nationwide, which rose 5 to 10 percent
during the 20th century, will probably increase another 10 percent by 2100,
chiefly in the form of extreme storms, exacerbating runoff pollution in
the Chesapeake Bay and other sensitive areas.
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- Paradoxically, however, the threat of drought - especially
in the western Kansas-eastern Colorado breadbasket - will rise because
hotter conditions enhance evaporation. For the same reason, water levels
could drop as much as five feet in the Great Lakes.
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- http://www.msnbc.com/local/RTAR/3804.asp?0a=226G171-
6-13-00
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- WASHINGTON (AP) - It's a grim forecast: Salmon quit running
the Columbia River as the cold water fish move farther north; sugar maples
in New England disappear; the barrier islands off the Carolinas are swept
away by higher seas.
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- These changes in landscape and ecosystem are but a few
of the projections outlined in the first-ever detailed "national assessment"
of what could be expected to occur in the United States, region by region,
if the nation's climate becomes 5 degrees to 10 degrees warmer over the
next 100 years.
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- The assessment, likely to be made public next week, is
the product of four years of study, numerous workshops and reviews by hundreds
of scientists both in and out of government who examined global warming's
likely regional impacts as well as its effect on human health, agriculture,
forests and coastal areas across the country.
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- Unlike other studies that have examined general global
impacts, this assessment was directed by Congress to focus on the United
States specifically.
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- Critics argue the analysis is little more than guess
work and that computer climate models, heavily relied upon in the assessment,
cannot predict impacts on a regional basis.
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- "This document is an evangelistic statement about
a coming apocalypse, not a scientific statement about the evolution of
a complicated system with significant uncertainties," John Christy,
a climatologist at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, wrote during a
review of an early draft of the 128-page overview.
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- Christy, who is among a group of scientists skeptical
about the likelihood of significant global warming, did not return telephone
calls seeking to know whether his views have changed about later drafts.
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- The overview report, a recent draft copy of which was
obtained by The Associated Press, acknowledges "significant uncertainties
in the science underlying climate-change impacts" particularly related
to human health. Still, it concludes "based on the best available
information, most Americans will experience significant impacts" from
the Earth's warming.
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- The forecast predicts "a complex mix of positive
and negative impacts" and concludes there may be surprises. "It
is very likely that some aspects and impacts of climate change will be
totally unanticipated," the report says.
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- But the assessment predicts entire ecosystems likely
will shift northward as temperatures increase, and coastal areas will have
to cope with higher sea levels and the prospects of more frequent storms.
Cities will swelter in more frequent heat waves, and droughts will become
more likely in parts of the Midwest.
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- Report: Warming will reshape U.S.
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- At the same time, the warmer, wetter climate will cause
larger crop yields for many farmers and cause tree growth to flourish in
the Northwest, although forests in the Southeast likely will break into
"a mosaic of forests, savannas and grasslands" and sugar maples
could disappear from the Northeast.
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- The warming will cause ocean levels to rise, causing
barrier islands to disappear and, when the geography allows, force wetlands
and marshes inland. But the Great Lakes are predicted to decline because
of increased evaporation, causing yet different problems.
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- Tree, fish and animal species will migrate northward
everywhere.
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- In the Pacific Northwest, the salmon may shift farther
north because of the warmer streams and offshore waters and be replaced
by warmer-water species. And in Alaska the rising temperature is expected
to cause further thawing of permafrost, damaging roads and buildings.
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- Some coastal cities, faced with sea level rise and more
frequent storm surges, may have to redesign and adapt water, sewer and
transportation systems, the study says. It makes no attempt to estimate
the costs of such improvements.
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- An early draft of the overview summary was attacked in
December as having "an extreme, alarmist tone" on predicting
impact on human health. It since has been revised with more emphasis on
the uncertainties of predicting health impacts.
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- Nevertheless, the study says higher temperatures and
increased rainfall likely will exacerbate air pollution, saddle large cities
with more frequent and severe heat waves, and lead to the spread of waterborne
or insect-carrying diseases, including malaria in the Southeastern states.
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- In much of the country, winter will be much milder. The
result: fewer opportunities to ski and more time for mountain hiking and
other mild-weather recreation. The warmer weather will reduce the mountain
snowpack, cutting summer runoff that feeds irrigation across much of the
West. More rain in the arid Southwest could bring new vegetation to desert
lands, but also more flash floods.
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- © 2000 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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