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42 weather records set in Ohio during past year

Miami Valley has endured its wettest fall in at least a century.

Ohio’s extreme weather included 34 rainfall records, seven heat-related records, and one snowfall record, the environmental group said.

Pat Strang Ohio’s extreme weather included 34 rainfall records, seven heat-related records, and one snowfall record, the environmental group said.

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Dayton has experienced its wettest fall in at least a century and is on course to reach the second-highest annual precipitation amount since 1893, according to Jamie Simpson, chief meteorologist for WHIO-TV Storm Center 7.

JIM NOELKER/FLOODING Dayton has experienced its wettest fall in at least a century and is on course to reach the second-highest annual precipitation amount since 1893, according to Jamie Simpson, chief meteorologist for WHIO-TV Storm Center 7.

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Ohioans endured 42 record-setting weather events just in the past year, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group active in climate change and global warming issues.

Jan Underwood Ohioans endured 42 record-setting weather events just in the past year, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group active in climate change and global warming issues.

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By Mark Fisher, Staff Writer Updated 7:32 AM Friday, December 9, 2011

Ohioans endured 42 record-setting weather events just in the past year, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group active in climate change and global warming issues.

Ohio’s extreme weather included 34 rainfall records, seven heat-related records, and one snowfall record, the environmental group said. Dayton has experienced its wettest fall in at least a century and is on course to reach the second-highest annual precipitation amount since 1893, according to Jamie Simpson, chief meteorologist for WHIO-TV Storm Center 7.

Nationwide, 2,941 monthly weather records were broken, the NRDC announced Thursday while unveiling an interactive website about extreme weather events (www.nrdc.org/extremeweather).

“From heat waves to floods to fires, 2011 was a year of extreme weather for communities throughout the United States. This alarming, yet illuminating data is indicative of what we can expect as climate change continues,” said Kim Knowlton, the NRDC senior scientist who spearheaded the development of the web-based tool. “Actions can be taken today to limit the worst effects of climate change. Our leaders need to make climate change preparedness a priority, if these events will be occurring more frequently and with more intensity.”

That concern is echoed by a newly released summary of a Special Report on Extreme Events from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which concluded last month that the effects of climate change will intensify extreme heat, heavy precipitation, and maximum wind speeds of tropical storms in the years to come.

The environmental advocacy group said 2011 weather extremes have cost an estimated $53 billion in damages nationwide. Mary Bonelli, spokeswoman for the Ohio Insurance Institute, said 2011 has been an unusually costly year for weather-related disasters across the Buckeye state as well, with six major storms — including the costly May hailstorm that struck parts of southwest Ohio — causing insured losses of up to an estimated $640 million.

Simpson said 2011 has been a “very extreme year” for weather across Ohio and the U.S., and climate change, he said, “was probably a contributing factor.” NRDC officials said they found about twice as many record high temperatures as record lows over the past year.

While global temperatures are clearly rising, it is not clear what proportion of the blame can be pinned on man-made activities and what proportion may be attributable to weather cycles, Simpson said. Those cycles have included a frigid period during the 1880s and 1890s that spawned some daily record lows that have persisted to this day, and a hot period in the 1930s that is associated with the “Dust Bowl” in parts of the U.S. and which also produced temperatures in the Dayton area that remain record highs eight decades later, he said.

Mark Gathany, assistant professor of biology and environmental science at Cedarville University who has studied carbon exchanges in grasslands, said there is strong evidence that some portion of climate change is being caused by human activity.

“There’s not much debate among ecologists I’m familiar with,” Gathany said. “It’s what can be done about it, and how effective those steps will be, that is what’s uncertain.”

Still, Gathany cautioned against placing too much weight in the weather events of a year or some other short-term period.

“We have to be careful to distinguish between it just being a bad year, or whether it is a trend,” he said.

Rob Scott, founder and president of the Dayton-area Tea Party chapter and newly elected Kettering City Council member, said global warming is not a settled issue. “Some science says it’s occurring, and some science says it’s not occurring,” Scott said.

But if global warming is real, Scott said, America cannot immediately cease its dependence on fossil fuels, because hybrid cars and other “green” technology are too costly to be a realistic and immediate alternative, Scott said.

Groups such as the National Resources Defense Council “are pushing for a government solution, but I would push for a private-sector solution,” Scott said.

• The Natural Resources Defense Council’s interactive extreme-weather map can be accessed at www.nrdc.org/extremeweather.