American cities will be transitioning to 'sweltering hellholes' by the end of the century.

Brian Kahn writes on a new study that finds how much warmer American cities will become in the coming decades as temperatures continue to increase.  Our fossil fuel use emits greenhouse gases that heat surface air temperatures with smothering humidity. It will not be pleasant.

When your grandchildren plan a trip to Denver later this century, they’ll need to leave the winter hat at home and instead plan like they’re going to the Texas Panhandle.

That’s according to a new study published on Tuesday in Nature Communications, which looked at the future climate of 540 cities in North America and drew comparisons with cities of today. The results show that cities’ climates will, at the end of the century, look more like cities 528 miles south do today if emissions continue rising in line with current trends. That will rearrange more than vacation plans as city residents will be forced to cope with more intense heat and the dangerous impacts that came with it. The study also shows that if we begin to cut emissions, cities’ climates will still change but the shift will be far less dramatic.

They tested two scenarios, one where the “emissions continue to grow on their current trends” the other where the earthlings, finally rein in greenhouse gas emissions  "starting in midcentury". You can see how your city will fare in this interactive map located here. (My home in Miami will feel like San Blas Atempa, Mexico which is described as being “hot and oppressive year round”.)

The results show a massive southward migration of hundreds of miles for nearly all cities’ climates under both emissions scenarios, but particularly if emissions keep going up. The biggest moves distance-wise are in the eastern U.S. and along the Pacific Coast because there’s less topographic variety. While western cities’ climate analogs can sometimes just be found downslope where things are warmer, eastern and coastal cities’ analogs are often much further away. That’s how you end up with Washington, D.C. feeling like it’s in Mississippi, San Francisco feeling like Los Angeles and Los Angeles feeling like the tip of Baja California by century’s end if emissions continue. Or take Anchorage, which will feel like Powell River, British Columbia located more than 1,200 miles south.

Climate change is really starting to freak out Americans https://t.co/ppbay1DLA4pic.twitter.com/w2uAmq3V4Q

From the press release:

“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,” said study author Matt Fitzpatrick of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. “Many cities could experience climates with no modern equivalent in North America.”

Fitzpatrick continues:

“Similar efforts to communicate climate change often focus on temperature only, but climate is more than just temperature. It also includes the amount precipitation an area receives, when it falls during the year, and how much arrives as snow versus rain,” said Fitzpatrick. “Climate change will lead to not only warming, but also will alter precipitation patterns.”

The natural disasters that have been linked to climate change that occurred in 2017 and 2018, in particular, have begun to turn public opinion around that the situation is dire without immediate action to curb our CO2 emissions.  

Witnessing the damage unfold on television was jaw-dropping. Ask the climate change deniers in North Carolina, a state that outlawed climate change, on how they feel about climate change now after having been pounded by hurricanes with floodwaters fed by increasing rainfall in Atlantic windstorms such as Florence and Michael. 

This year is expected to be the hottest year on record due to El Nino and climate change. There will be frightening impacts all over the news yet again this summer, you would think the GOP knows that is likely and at least pretend that they care.

Clearly, they do care given American citizens are still suffering in Florida, California, Texas, North Carolina, and of course Puerto Rico, which is exhibit A of the cruelty from the Trump administration to victims of disasters.