Vermont Climate Assessment Offers Surprisingly Detailed Look At A Warm, Changed Future..

One of the shortcomings of the predictions regarding what will happen as the earth's climate warms due to our burning of fossil fuel is what will happen precisely where we live.

This Vermont home was destroyed in floods from
Tropical Storm Irene. A new climate assessment says
floods like this in Vermont will keep getting
worse and more frequent. 

That's understandable, given the uncertainty of warming's local effects and especially the sheer effort needed to examine what will happen in each specific spot on Earth.

But we're starting to get a picture now, starting with the state I live in, Vermont.

Vermont has become the first state to piggy back on the National Climate Assessment released by the White House last month.

Here in the Green Mountain State, climatologists, University of Vermont scientists, state government officials, and local business owners, farmers and others collaborated to create a Vermont-specific assessment.

The bottom line: Trends we've seen in Vermont will continue and get worse.

Having lived in Vermont all of my 51 years so far, I've seen the changes outlined in the report, which says the changes will get more intense.

We seem to be getting heavier, stronger storms, and especially more frequent and damaging floods. That's the biggest negative to climate change highlighted in the Vermont report. This trend toward intense storms and floods will continue to worsen in the Green Mountain State.

Of course, the increased risk of floods have the biggest implications: Extreme floods are of course life threatening. Since many of Vermont's towns, and many of our main highways follow the state's flood plains, we're really prone to damage and disruption to floods.

Just look to the devastating inundation from Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 if you want an example. Or if you want a look at the constant disruption from stronger, wetter storms, just look to June and July of 2013, when repeated intense thunderstorms caused lots of flash flooding, power failures and other disruptions.

According to the report, the increased precipitation might lead to one short-term boon: It's snowing more in the winter, and the snow will continue to really slam us in the next couple of decades as the storms become more intense. That's good for the ski industry.

However, winter thaws are becoming more frequent, and as warming continues, these big snowstorms will become big winter rainstorms, so that doesn't exactly help the winter sports industry.

Another nice thing from global warming in Vermont is the growing season is getting longer, which could help farmers and other sectors of the agriculture industry. On the other hand, these longer, warmer growing seasons could also increase problems with pests and invasive species.

The state's famed fall foliage season might suffer some global warming consequences, too. Oak and hickory might find a more hospitable environment in Vermont as things warm up, while sugar maples might have a harder time.

Fall colors are more intense on sugar maples than on oak and hickory so the annual fall display might get a little dulled in the future.

The report says that the state's tourism industry could actually benefit from climate change, as longer, warmer summers keep tourists here for a greater part of the year. And since Vermont, being this far north, won't be as hot as the South, we might get more tourists coming to Vermont to escape the deadly heat in places like Atlanta, Houston, Washington DC and other southern hot spots.

The entire report is available by clicking on THIS LINK