Average Annual NJ Temps Up 3F Since 1970; Substantial Contribution To Ozone, Asthma, COPD
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Since 1970, New Jersey has experienced a 3°F increase in annual average temperatures, making it one of the fastest-warming states in the nation, Climate Central analysts found when examining temperature records. The last 20 years have seen 11 of the state’s 15 hottest summers, according to state climate records that date back to 1895. The state’s warming is largely the result of greenhouse gas-driven climate change and urban development.
While New Jersey’s escalating temperatures magnify the risks of damaging storms and flooding — both well-documented consequences of climate change — the hazards of declining air quality are less widely discussed.
This warming trend, combined with pollution from cars, power plants and chemical plants, is expected to increase the number of days each year that New Jersey residents inhale unsafe levels of ozone pollution, also called smog.
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Hotter weather combined with population growth — driven by suburbs in the 1980s and ‘90s and by urban centers more recently — and steadily rising motor vehicle use on New Jersey’s roads boost the ingredients for smog formation. Loretta Mickley, a senior research fellow at Harvard University, concluded in a 2016 Geophysical Research Letters study that unhealthy ozone days in parts of the U.S. would increase up to a week each year by 2050 — unless far-reaching measures are taken to reduce heat-trapping pollution from fossil fuels and other industrial activities. Mickley’s model predicts that New Jersey will experience twice as many annual ozone days by 2050.
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https://www.climatecentral.org/news/new-jersey-warming-alarming-rate-air-pollution