American West heating up faster than rest of world.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, in analyzing federal government temperature data from the period of 2003 to 2007, recently concluded that the Western United States is heating up almost twice as quickly as the rest of the world.
According to the data, for this five year period, the American West experienced an average temperature that was 1.7 degrees F warmer than the mean for the 20th century. In comparison, the increase in average global temperature for the same period was 0.55 degrees F.
Even before the impacts of global warming, the Western Region had serious water issues, given that it is a natural desert. Add on to this fact the rapidly growing population and apparently radical effects of climate change, and the region is set up for a serious long-term problem.
For anyone interested in this issue, we would highly recommend a great book analyzing this issue by Marc Reisner, called Cadillac Desert. In this book, Reisner takes a look at the history of American water acquisition and management, in the context of the American West. He asserts that our civilization will face, in the not-too-distant future, existential issues relating to the use and management of water (or lack thereof).
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