Vermont Among Fastest Warming States in U.S.

An interesting story by Seth Borenstein with the AP indicates Vermont is tied with Maine as the fastest warming areas of the United States as global warming takes hold.  

A hot summer day on Lake Champlain off Burlington, Vermont.
The Champlain Valley is among the fastest warming
regions in the United States.  

He did an analysis of temperature trends in the past 30 years - between 1984 and 2014, to come up with the regions in the United States that warmed the fastest and most slowly.

The five fastest growing regions in the United States include two in Vermont: The Northeast Kingdom and the Champlain Valley.

The other ones are the St. Lawrence Valley of New York, northern Maine, and the northeastern plains of New Mexico.

The fastest warming spot, including Vermont, are at least 2.5 degrees warmer than they were in 1984. That doesn't sound like much, but it does represent a significant shift in the overall scheme of things. It's almost as if the climate of Springfield, Mass. moved to Burlington, Vermont

Warmer winters are driving the increasing heat in Vermont and the rest of the Northeast. Hotter, drier summers are heating the Southwest, it seems.

The data show how randomness, local effects and other cycles that have nothing to do with human-caused climate change can cause varying rates at which places warm.

According to Borenstein:

"The continguous United States annual average temperature has warmed by 1.2 degrees since 1984, with summers getting 1.6 degrees hotter. But that doesn't really tell you how hot it's gotten for most Americans. 

While man-made greenhouse gases warm the world as a whole, weather is supremely local."

The theory is Vermont has gotten hotter faster in part because of global warming, and in part for whatever, reason, the North Atlantic was unusually warm during much of the past 30 years, which influenced the New England climate.

More importantly, Vermont's warmer winters are part of a feedback loop. It's milder, the snow melts, the dark ground reflects less winter sunlight than snow cover, so the lack of snow makes it even warmer than it otherwise would have been.

Meanwhile, the southeastern United States warmed more slowly than other regions. Those areas rely more on coal for electricity. The pollution from coal plants reflected away a little bit of sun, tamping down the warming there.

There's no guarantee that the regions that are warming the fastest will continue to do so. The rate of warming in Vermont might, or might not slow down over the next 30 years. But the world as a whole continues to get hotter.

Your kids will say that their climate is not their father's climate, that's for sure.