Adirondacks warming faster than the global average, study shows. Part 12 In The Rest Of The World Is Warming Up Twice As Fast As The Rest Of The World.
HAGUE — The Adirondacks have warmed more than two times the global average, according to scientific studies done by SUNY Plattsburgh.
The Adirondacks and North Country have warmed about 3 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900, and that increase is expected to double by 2050 if carbon emissions remain “business as usual,” said Eric Leibensperger, associate professor at the Center for Earth and Environmental Science.
By the end of the century, the temperature increase could be so much, Leibensperger said it would be a “game changer,” especially for the winters as those who enjoy the Adirondacks know them.
The data was debuted at the North Country Climate Reality’s conference called, “Adirondack Communities: Preparing for and Responding to Climate Change,” held Saturday at the Silver Bay YMCA Conference Center. It had a breakout session of a couple dozen people astonished.
Alexandria Elliott, one of Leibensperger’s students, said there hasn’t been as much temperature change in the spring and fall, but there’s been significant change during the winter months, about 4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900. The warming particularly ramped up starting around 1980, the data has shown.
“Personally I have witnessed this change in my lifetime which is pretty horrifying to me,” Elliott said. “I remember when winters were a lot more colder and had a lot more snow. And I’m young so that’s scary to me.”
The northern hemisphere of the globe is seeing the most temperature warmth, Leibensperger said, partially because there’s more land mass. Land mass warms quicker than water, he added. Greenhouse gases, a major culprit of global warming, are also at their most potent at night.
Climate change worse everywhere than everywhere else