New tool can help see effect of climate change on heat - KOLD
New tool can help see effect of climate change on heat
TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) - Wednesday is the 41st straight day of triple digits in Tucson and there’s a new tool available that can show just how climate change has impacted that.
The tool, developed by Climate Central, is called the Climate Shift Index.
“The Climate Shift Index is a first of its kind attribution tool,” said Lauren Casey, Meteorologist with Climate Central. “It was developed by our science team at climate central and it reveals the influence of climate change on our local, daily temperatures.”
The tool is a numbered scale, which has 11 categories. Each symbolizes how much climate change is impacting us.
“Zero would be no influence, meaning the temperature is what it is. Climate change has not impacted it whatsoever,” said Casey. “But when we start getting into the positive scale: one, two, three, four, five. When we get up to 5, that means climate change has made those temperatures at least five times more likely than without climate change.”
There is also a negative scale that includes negative one through five.
“Cooler temperatures are becoming less frequent. So the negative scale indicates those temperatures are becoming more rare because of climate change.”
The Climate Shift Index has Arizona at level 5.
“Temperatures that you’re experiencing that day have been made at least five times more likely because of climate change. So if we hadn’t added all that carbon dioxide to our atmosphere, you wouldn’t be experiencing temperatures quite that extreme.”
So where does their information come from?
“Climate shift is basically taking our temperatures in our world with climate change and comparing them to a model simulated world without climate change and showing us the difference.”
They also get their data from the Global Forecast System(GFS).
“Essentially, the GFS is predicting air temperatures, is taking into account the impacts of cloud cover and wind, but our Climate Shift Index focuses on daily temperatures. Lows, highs, and averages.”
Climate Central says this tool is so important because it shows us extreme events aren’t the only things being affected by climate change. It’s also a great tool to see how climate change may impact us in the future.
You can learn more about the Climate Shift Index here.
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Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.