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New Idaho
Tue Sep 06, 2005
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi, I’m Bryan Yeaton, and this is The Weather Notebooks weekly series on Global Climate Change. As global temperatures warm, scientists predict seasonal shifts in snow and rainfall in the western U.S. Jeff Rice reports.
Global warming is not just about air temperature. The oceans are warming up too. And this affects the weather and seasons.
Basically, what drives the whole water cycle and climate is the oceans.
Dr. Mitch Lyle is a paleo-oceanographer at Boise State University. He and several colleagues are studying ocean weather cycles from the distant past-- the Meiocene period 15 million years ago, when temperatures in the west were as much as 15 or 16 degrees warmer. They are interested in this period because it shows what happens to the seasons when temperatures warm, something relevant to our current situation.
Through the global warming process, we're going to be moving to net warmer oceans and net warmer atmosphere.
Evaporation occurs more easily in warmer oceans, so more rain is created. Seasons are also shifted. Heavy summer rains were common in the Meiocene and made places like Idaho look more like Florida. Those days aren't likely to return any time soon, but Lyle says even a few degrees of warming could cause subtle changes such as wetter springs and drier winters.
Which is a pattern that's beginning to resemble the meiocene pattern.
If global warming continues at its current rate-- about .4 degrees Farenheit per decade--Lyle and other scientists say the western U.S. will likely see some sort of shift in seasons within the next 50 to 100 years.
Jeff Rice comes to us from Boise, Idaho. The Weather Notebook receives major funding from Subaru of America. Help for our Climate Change Series comes from Environmental Defense.
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