Climate change will make North Carolina hotter and more humid, report says

North Carolina is hotter than it was in the mid-1890s, scientists said, and it’s highly likely greenhouse gases will drive up average temperatures in the state through the middle and end of this century.

NC State University’s North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies released a report Wednesday detailing how temperatures, precipitation and flooding will increase as heat-trapping greenhouse gas concentrations rise.

“We can expect large changes in North Carolina’s climate, much larger than any time in the state’s history,” said Kenneth Kunkel, a senior scientist with the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies and one of the report’s authors.

The report on the state’s historic trends and anticipated changes was prepared at the request of the state Department of Environmental Quality. Kunkel said the peer-reviewed report was prepared by climate experts and is a “scientific contribution” to Gov. Roy Cooper’s Executive Order 80, which aimed to develop goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The scientists described their forecasts based on the strength of the projections, ranging from virtually certain to low confidence. They offered projections for a scenario where emissions increase slowly, peak at mid-century then decline, and for a scenario where greenhouse gas emissions increase through the century.

The 10 years between 2009 and 2018 were the warmest decade on record, the report said, and 2019 broke records as the state’s hottest year.

Not only will it get hotter, the report said, but it will get more humid, too.

Key findings in the report are “disruptive sea level rise,” intense rainfall and humidity that makes “our summers more miserable than they are now,” Kunkel said during a news conference Wednesday at the report’s release.

High tide flooding, or “sunny day flooding,” will likely increase in cities and towns along the coast, occurring as often as once in every two days between 2050 and 2060, and every day after 2080. A 2018 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report on the increased frequency of high tide flooding said it can cause beach erosion and road closures, and can overwhelm stormwater systems.

“Thinking about more sustainable development is going to be important as we think about having flooding without storms,” said Reide Corbett, executive director of the Coastal Studies Institute at East Carolina University and one of the report’s authors.

The state climate report also gives specifics for the coastal plain, the Piedmont, and the western mountains.

The report says it’s very likely average temperatures in the state will increase year-round, and both days and nights will be warmer.

Under the scenario where emissions decline after mid-century, annual average temperatures will be 2 to 6 degrees higher by the end of the century. Under the scenario where greenhouse gases increase through the century, the temperature increases will be in the range of 6 to 10 degrees.

The state has experienced an upward trend in heavy rainstorms of three inches or more, the report said. As the atmosphere warms, it’s very likely that the risk of heavy storms will increase across the state.

The hurricanes that pass near or over North Carolina are likely to be more intense as well.

Richard A. Luettich Jr., director of UNC’s Institute of Marine Sciences and one of the report authors, said the report can be used to make good planning and development decisions.

“There’s enough information in this report to act,” he said. “We really have to use this to make wiser decisions going forward.”