Wednesday, September 16, 2020

The United States of Climate Change

One effect of climate change will be that the habitable zone, the areas where humans can comfortably live, will also change. In the United States the habitable zone, the region where temperature and precipitation is most favorable for human life, will shift significantly northwards.

ProPublica has mapped out new data from the Rhodium Group to show how climate change will drive agriculture and the habitable zone northward in the United States. In New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States a scrollytelling story map is used to visualize how global warming will dramatically alter the way that people live in the US.

In the South and Southwest extreme heat will become commonplace. Growing food will also become very difficult in many parts of the country. The ProPublica article includes a number of maps which show the areas of the US which will have 'wet bulb' conditions (where extreme heat and excessive humidity combine to create lethal weather conditions), where extreme wildfires will become more common, where sea level rise will flood coastal areas and where agriculture will become near impossible.

Using maps to show how climate change will impact our lives can be very revealing. Earlier this year the National Geographic released a new interactive feature which also explains what you can expect from global heating. It does this by showing you a city which currently experiences average temperatures that your home town can expect to see in the year 2070.

If carbon emissions continue to rise at the current rate then by 2070 the world will experience devastating climate change. For example Boston, Massachusetts will experiences temperatures 5 degrees centigrade hotter than today and 49 mm more rain will fall. This is similar to the climate that Bardwell, Kentucky has today.

In Your Climate, Changed the National Geographic uses an interactive map to show the future climate analogs of 2,500 cities around the world. These analogs are based on worst-case climate change scenario assumptions. The map automatically detects your location to show you your nearest future global heating twin. The map also explains what kind of climate zone your city currently experiences and compares that to the likely climate it will have in 2070.

No comments: