Within a lifetime, cities in North America will have the same climate as areas 500 miles south. Researchers studied 540 urban areas that encompassed approximately 250 million inhabitants in the United States and Canada and mapped the similarity between the expected climate by 2080 compared to 12 other climate scenarios including minimum and maximum temperature and precipitation. The research also analysed climate differences in two scenarios: unmitigated emissions, which is what would be expected under current policies and global action towards climate change, and mitigated emissions, which assumes all policies are put into place and action is carried out quickly.
Study author Matt Fitzpatrick of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science said: “We can use this technique to translate a future forecast into something we can better conceptualise and link to our own experiences.
“It’s my hope that people have that ‘wow’ moment, and it sinks in for the first time the scale of the changes we’re expecting in a single generation.”
The research found that by 2080, even in the best-case scenario, the climate in North America will be substantially different.
Residents in a city will have to drive 500 miles south to find a climate similar to what they have now if all policies are put in to place, and if things carry on as they are now, those people would have to drive more than 800 miles south.
For example, New York, which is regarded as a relatively cool State, will feel more like Arkansas which is around four degrees celsius hotter, and Florida will feel more like the searing heat of southern Mexico according to the study published in Nature Communications.
Mr Fitzpatrick continued: “Within the lifetime of children living today, the climate of many regions is projected to change from the familiar to conditions unlike those experienced in the same place by their parents, grandparents, or perhaps any generation in millennia.
“Many cities could experience climates with no modern equivalent in North America.
“Under the business as usual emissions the average urban dweller is going to have to drive nearly 1,000km to the south to find a climate like that expected in their home city by 2080.
“Not only is climate changing, but climates that don’t presently exist in North America will be prevalent in a lot of urban areas.”