View Single Post
Old 04-05-2009, 10:40 AM   #22 (permalink)
ASU2003
immoral minority
 
ASU2003's Avatar
 
Location: Back in Ohio
I fear that an increased temperature would cause water vapor to not create as much rain, or cause the jet stream to shift. Either one wouldn't be too good. It would either be really humid and the wind would blow all of the moisture away from the Midwest (maybe not Michigan and Ohio because of the Great Lakes). And the trees here are dying or getting cut down much faster than they are being replaced, and even if they were replaced, it takes 40-70 years for trees to grow big enough to be a normal forest.

The other possibility is that the level of pollution from Asia and elsewhere would cause acid rain to fall in greater acidity levels than it is already. If the rain is poison, all of the trees and smaller plants die off. Farms might be able to counter this with watering from the aquifer or the local lakes, but I'm not sure how many of them would be able to switch quickly if something happened that they couldn't get water from those sources. And with all the dry dead plant material, forest fires would be an issue.

And a simple heat wave, with farmers not planting crops that could handle drought conditions (an not having the modern watering capabilities), and a lack of trees to stop the wind caused the dust bowl in the 30s. And just because we can get water from other sources today to grow food in the Midwest if another heat wave and drought comes, doesn't mean that it will always be the case or as easy as it is today.

1936 North American heat wave - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ASU2003 is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360