NJ’s future is a hotter climate, more flooding and increased drought: Rutgers report

• 2024 was the second hottest year on record in NJ, only eclipsed by 2012.
• Global temperatures have risen about 2 degrees over the past century, but New Jersey is heating up twice as fast.
• Since 1911, sea level along New Jersey’s coast has risen 19 inches.

NEW BRUNSWICK — New Jersey residents should brace for a future with dryer summers, heavier rain storms and more heat, according to a new report from Rutgers University’s Climate Change Resource Center.

In New Jersey, 2024 marked the second hottest year on record since recordkeeping began 130 years ago, said New Jersey State Climatologist David Robinson, who is one of the Rutgers report’s 11 authors. The only year that eclipsed last year was 2012, he said.

2024’s record-setting heat was another example of an overall warming trend in New Jersey’s climate over the past century — a trend that is expected to continue raising temps over the next 75 years, a group of the report’s authors said Thursday during a virtual meeting with members of the public.

“We have gotten considerably warmer in New Jersey in recent decades,” said Robinson, the state climatologist. “We were really cooking back in 2024.”

Global temperatures have risen about 2 degrees over the past century, but New Jersey is heating up twice as fast, said James Shope, a Rutgers University expert in climate change adaptation and an author on the report. The Garden State has recorded about 4 degrees of warming since 1900, he said.

Not all parts of the planet are heating up at the same rate. Some places — like the Arctic Circle, the Middle East, the southwestern United States and New Jersey — are seeing higher rising temperatures than the global average, he said.

“We think this warming trend is going to continue into the future,” Shope said.

Scientists expect the temperature will raise another 3.7 to 6.2 degrees (over 1991 to 2020 temperature averages) by 2100, he said.

Those hotter climate means the atmosphere over New Jersey can hold more moisture, which could lead to heavier, more extreme rain events, said Robinson.

“A warming atmosphere can retain more moisture. For every 1.8-degree Fahrenheit change in temperature, the atmosphere has the potential of holding 7% more moisture,” Robinson said.

Those conditions mean means storms are capable of dropping massive amounts of rain in a single day, Rutgers climate scientists said.

In addition, those deluges are being punctuated by greater stretches of drought, according to the report.

Models of climate trends and evaporation lead scientists to predict that New Jersey will have wetter winters and dryer summers, said Shope, the climate change adaptation specialist.

More hot weather and increasing rainfall are likely to stress stormwater management systems in urban areas and lead to more mosquitoes in New Jersey, Shope said. That could also raise the risk for outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases, like West Nile Virus and malaria, he said.

Flooding, too, is likely to be an increasing problem for New Jersey residents, Shope said. Since 1911, sea level along New Jersey’s coast has risen 19 inches, due to global rising seas and the sinking of the Earth’s plate on which New Jersey sits, he said.

Sea level is predicted to rise another 2 to 5 feet over 2000’s level by the end of the century, Shope said.

That sea level rise “exacerbates our worst events,” he said. “For certain events like, say, a nor’easter that produces storm surge… that storm surge acts on top of an existing high tide line.

“With sea level rise, you ship that baseline higher and all of a sudden your storm surge can go in a lot farther and cause more damage.”

Inland communities in New Jersey are also at an increasing risk of flooding, said Anthony Broccoli, a Rutgers professor of atmospheric science and one of the report’s authors.

“Inland areas can (also) be subject to extreme rainfall, flooding, damage and even loss of life from tropical systems,” Broccoli said. “As the world and its oceans warm, since those ocean waters are the source of energy for tropical systems, but also the source of moisture… those systems will bring greater rainfall that can cause river flooding well away from the coastline.”

Amanda Oglesby is an Ocean County native who covers education and the environment. She has worked for the Press for more than 17 years. Reach her at aoglesby@gannettnj.com or 732-557-5701.