Scientists conclude greenhouse gas reduction will decrease summer heat

World Today

Record high temperatures are hitting parts of the United States. But that upward trend could change if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced.

CCTV America’s Hendrik Sybrandy reports.

June was the 14th consecutive month the global temperature record has been broken.

According to the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the probability that any summer between 2061 and 2080 will be warmer than the hottest on record is 80 percent across the world’s land areas — if climate change continues on its current course.

A modest reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, NCAR Scientist Ben Sanderson said, drops the probability of summer heat records to 41 percent.

To reach that conclusion, Sanderson and his NCAR colleagues fed reams of data on the Earth and its climate, past and present, into this supercomputer and then ran multiple simulations of the two scenarios. They found that climate change could affect the world unevenly.

NCAR’s Flavio Lehner points out China and North America, in the middle latitudes, will also likely see fewer record hot summers if carbon emissions come down.

Sanderson hopes this latest study helps push policymakers further in the direction of renewable energy. He said he believes his statistical models make a strong case that modest reduction in greenhouse gases can make a big difference.