LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — This week’s Climate Wednesday has the whole lot to do with summer time, from the outdated saying “the dog days of summer” to the shifting of the summer time season and what the way forward for summer time might seem like.
THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER:
Let’s begin with the straightforward phrase “the dog days of summer.” You’ve most likely heard the time period “the dog days of summer” prior to now and have puzzled the place the time period comes from.
In line with each the Farmer’s Almanac and the Nationwide Climate Service, the phrase doesn’t need to do with precise pet canines however slightly astronomical canines!
The star Sirius is a part of the constellation Canis Main (Giant Canine). The “dog days of summer” check with the 20 days earlier than and 20 days after the star Sirius rises and units in relation to our solar.
Sometimes, the “dog days” can happen anytime from July by way of August. This 12 months, it’s between July third and August eleventh.
Totally different civilizations correlated the rising of this star to the summer time warmth and humidity and coined a phrase to match it. The traditional Greeks and Romans weren’t followers of the “dog days” and noticed them as a time liable to drought, unhealthy luck, and unrest.
If you’re a fan of the canine days of summer time, then you might be in luck.
Our summers are warming and can proceed to heat if we proceed to burn heat-trapping pollution, in keeping with the meteorologists and climatologists on the nonprofit group Local weather Central.
Local weather Central examined knowledge from the previous 50 years, which checked out common summer time temperatures for 234 cities throughout the US.
Additionally they used local weather mannequin projections for a similar cities to calculate how our summers may change over the approaching centuries.
SUMMER HEATING
Since 1970, Local weather Central has discovered that summer time temperatures throughout the US have elevated by 97%.
Total, they discovered that summers have warmed up by a median of two.6°F. Moreover, one in each 5 cities surveyed is experiencing no less than an extra month of hotter-than-normal summer time days.
Right here in Lansing, we’ve got seen a median temperature enhance of about 3.1 levels over the previous 50 years, with about 17 days of above-normal temperatures.
SHIFTING SUMMER SEASON
Local weather Central used local weather mannequin projections to calculate how summer time excessive temperatures might change over the many years.
They discovered that not solely will our summer time seasons develop into hotter as we proceed to make use of excessive heat-trapping air pollution from burning coal, oil, and gasoline, however we will even begin to really feel like cities lots of of miles to our south in future many years.
Right here in Mid-Michigan, our common summer time excessive temperature may enhance by about 9 levels, which means that by 2060, Lansing will really feel extra like present summers in Bloomington, Indiana, and by 2100, it may heat to comparable temperatures as Memphis, Tennessee.
