NY-on-the-Gulf: The Warmer World of 2200

[marmar]

NY-on-the-Gulf: The Warmer World of 2200

Posted on Feb 27, 2013
By Tim Radford, Climate News Network

This piece first appeared at Climate News Network.


LONDON—Some like it hot but most like it not: higher temperatures and rising humidity could seriously affect the capacity to work in a future world, according to scientists at Princeton University, US.

John Dunne and colleagues from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration looked at data from recent decades and projections of future temperature rise.

They report in Nature Climate Change that they estimate that environmental heat stress has reduced labour capacity to 90% in the peak months in the last few decades. By 2050, they estimate, this capacity could be reduced to 80% as workers gasp and perspire in the heat.

If carbon dioxide emissions continue at the highest projection, then by 2200 in the hottest months, future humans will struggle to deliver even 40% of their present productivity. For those people who tend to swelter in high summer right now, it will eventually be just far too hot to trot. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/ny-on-the-gulf_the_warmer_world_of_2200_20130227/

[AverageJoe90]

1. This might indeed happen under a full-blown A1FI scenario.....but.....

TBH, I doubt we're really all that likely to fulfill A1FI(unless perhaps our reserves of fossil fuels are greater than we thought), but from what I've seen, the highest-end prediction for 2200 under the A2 scenario(second worst) in the AR5 draft is about 8*C, which in all likelihood, probably wouldn't be enough to get NYC's average July high to ~100*F; I'd venture it'd probably be more like 94-95*F, like Houston today.....though it's not all that much better, TBH.

With that in mind, though, I don't know exactly what scenario they DID have in mind in terms of temperature rise, so I'll just leave it at that.

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.