By 2080, Hampton Roads cities’ climates will likely resemble present-day southern Louisiana, according to a map released by the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science.
The faculty and researchers used climate analogue mapping, which matches one location’s predicted future climate with another location’s current climate. Matthew Fitzpatrick, professor and associate director of research at the University of Maryland, used data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to match more than 40,000 locations around the world with nearby locations that will experience the future climate predicted for 2080.
“In 50 years’ time, cities in the northern hemisphere will look similar to cities in the southern hemisphere,” Fitzpatrick said. “Everything is moving toward the equator in terms of the climate going forward.”
“And as we get closer to the equator, there are fewer and fewer places with suitable climates for places like Central America, South Florida and North Africa. There are no places on Earth that are representative of what these places will be like in the future.”
For Hampton Roads residents, the region will resemble southern Louisiana, the study concluded.
Newport News, Hampton and Williamsburg are expected to experience summers about 10 degrees warmer than now and winters as much as 9 degrees warmer, bringing their climates closer to those of Kaplan, Louisiana, a small city near the Gulf Coast, according to the study.
Kaplan is located about 30 miles south of Lafayette and has an average summer temperature of 89-91 degrees, depending on the month. Newport News has an average summer temperature of 86-90 degrees.
The city of South Hampton Roads is estimated to be similar to Erath, Louisiana, about 15 miles east of Kaplan, meaning that summers in 2080 could be 9.3 degrees warmer and 8% wetter than today. The average summer temperature in Erath is 90 to 91 degrees. Norfolk’s average summer temperature is 76 to 80 degrees (depending on the month), according to historical data from the National Weather Service in Wakefield.
Richmond could eventually become a city like Channelview, Texas, a suburb of Houston.
Summers in southeastern Virginia are historically hot, but climate change is making those heat waves even worse, at times posing dangers to people’s health and affecting some areas more than others. According to the NWS, extreme heat is the most dangerous weather event in terms of deaths, surpassing tornadoes, hurricanes, and other severe storms.
Every year, heatwaves kill hundreds of people in the U.S. As temperatures topped 90 degrees this week and the heat index averaged 105 to 115 degrees, cities across the region opened cooling centers, providing air-conditioned space for vulnerable populations, including seniors, young children and the homeless.
“We hope this research will continue to inform the discussion about climate change,” Fitzpatrick said, “We hope it will help people better understand the magnitude of the impacts and why scientists are so concerned.”
Eliza Noe, eliza.noe@virginiamedia.com
