Indiana to become warmer and wetter, Purdue researchers say
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WISH) – It may be difficult to think about climate change with the recent cold weather in April but researchers at Purdue say Indiana’s weather is predicted to change and get warmer and wetter.
In March, the Purdue Climate Change Research Center released a Climate Change Impacts Report.
Within that report, they talk about what they have seen in their last couple years of research. The report included experts from all over the state and used past data to study and predict the future.
“Indiana is warmed over time. It’s been a gradual warming, there’s a lot of variation from year to year but the state is warmer than it used to be and it’s also a lot wetter than it used to be,” said Director of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center, Jeff Dukes.
He said already Indiana receives about five more inches of precipitation annually than it did in the late 1800’s.
That may not initially seem like much but if that continues, experts say the state and Midwest will have warmer weather and wetter spring and winter months.
“The reason that the planet is warming globally is that we have more heat trapping gases in the atmosphere and actually the physics suggest that the warming that we’re getting is entirely from those heat trapping gases,” Dukes added.
He said gases specifically like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide contribute to climate change.
“If we cleaned up some of the emissions from smokestacks, we would actually be even warmer than we are now because of the heat trapping gases that are being released,” he said.
Dukes said if the emissions into the atmosphere continue at the same pace it could get to a crisis level.
“We have to fix the crisis now that’s going to happen in the future. We could end up by the end of the century having a summer climate in Indiana that’s similar to that of south Texas. So that’s substantially different than what we have now. That’s uncomfortable, that’s dangerous for some people, for
our more vulnerable populations,” he said.
To read more on the report, click here.