ST. PAUL -- Minnesota winters are warming faster than almost any other state in the U.S.

New research from the University of Minnesota published in the journal of Earth and Space Science makes some startling claims about weather changes over the next century.

Researchers worked with the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute to develop a program that predicts temperature and precipitation changes.

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Lead researcher Doctor Stephan Liess from the University of Minnesota’s Department of Soil, Water and Climate says the models can help predict the effects of any environmental changes that we make today.

There are certainly a lot of things we can do. We have the results, the seven degree increase, for the scenario where we just continue do do what we do now, we also analyzed a different scenario where we mitigate our energy consumption and mitigate our emission of greenhouse gases. With that, we get lower numbers, we then have something like three to four degrees warming, which is still a large amount, but every degree warming lost helps us tremendously in the economy.

Researchers found without any major changes now, central Minnesota could see 55 fewer days of snow cover and an average decrease of five inches in total snowpack.

Another major effect of the research is an estimated increase in spring rains of 25%. Dr. Liess says predictive models can help plan major water management projects.

I think that's this is where we need to look into water management and making sure that these excessive capacities can be still met in the future. How can we store all this excessive water? Especially with water management, we want to be prepared for the extreme scenarios.

For more on the research, click here.

 

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