11,600 years ago, the temperature of North America rose about 13 degrees fahrenheit (Climate; George Ochoa, Jennifer Ruth Hoffman, Tina Tin, 2005.) The end of the Younger Dryas completely transformed Europe and North America. North America, particularly, looked a lot like Greenland today - a land covered with miles of ice, from the arctic to the Pacific to the Atlantic, all the way down to where the Great Lakes are today.
The new temperatures totally replaced this environment of ice and tundra with forests, lakes, and streams. Nothing familiar about the original land remained, once the ice melted and left.
According to a new United States Global Change Research Program report, a similar temperature change approaches. And it will happen within seventy years.
And it is going to get hot. Very, very hot. It already is in fact.
In Alaska
Lakes are drying up. Alaska has a number of lakes that aren't fed, which is not unusual in northern areas. But with an incipient temperate climate, these lakes are just evaporating.
The permafrost is melting - and everything built on it, from homes to roads - will be destroyed as it turns to soft muskeg.
Storms will increase, as sea the ice that protects the coasts will be depleted. Some coastal communities are eroding into the sea.
The Northeast
Pollution will get intolerable. Rural industries, such as maple syrup, dairy, and fruit production will no longer be viable. Boston will spend up to 24 days of the year enduring daily highs of over a 100 degrees.
The Midwest
In the breadbasket, there will be mixed blessings. Some changes, such as a longer growing season, will actually favor this region. But with that comes symptoms reminiscent of the Book of Exodus: pests, floods, and drought will probably take away any increased agricultural productivity. Southern species may invade. Gators maybe?
A little alarmist? Perhaps. But the worst case scenario in the report shows Illinois having temperatures and weather similar to present day Texas in seventy years.
If you think that an 11.5 degree increase in temperatures just means nicer winters and more air conditioning in summer, let me just show you how drastic a change that was when the Younger Dryas ended.
Picture the readvanced Michigan lobe, near Chicago, circa the Younger Dryas, 11,000 years ago. (This is more realistic than you think - this is the Barnes Ice Cap, the last piece of the glacier that once covered the northern midwest.)
Credit: Govt. of Canada
Chicago today.
Credit: Pictophile, license, CC-NC-A
Yes, if you're scared by that difference - you should be.