Severe rain and snowstorms are hitting New England more often than they did 60 years ago, and the trend is expected to continue because of global warming, according to research released Wednesday by a national advocacy group.
New England has experienced a 61 percent increase in the frequency of big storms, the largest increase for any region in the nation, the report says.
Maine has had a 43 percent increase in extreme storms. And the Portland area, with a 112 percent increase, is among a small group of metropolitan areas that have seen severe storm frequencies double since 1948, when widespread data became available.
Environment America reported its findings around the country this week to coincide with a scheduled vote in Congress on regulating pollution that traps heat in the earth's atmosphere. The organization's Maine branch, Environment Maine, released the report and Maine highlights Wednesday and said the trend could continue and worsen without strong action to slow warming.
"As climate change and global warming happens, the increase in temperature results in clouds holding more precipitation, so when it finally does come down, it comes down in downpours and severe snow events," said Tracy Allen of Environment Maine. "They're becoming more and more commonplace, unfortunately."
Along with the storms comes flooding, coastal erosion, water pollution and other problems, Allen said.
It is impossible to say that any one storm or series of storms is due to global climate change, a trend that scientists prefer to measure in hundreds or thousands of years.
But the findings of increased storm severity in much of the country are consistent with the scientific projections of how the weather might shift in the Northeast as the earth heats up.
"We expect to see more precipitation overall and more intense precipitation, but longer drier periods in summertime," said Thomas Huntington, a hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Maine District Office in Augusta. "Storm tracks are moving northward, but also storm intensity is expected to increase."
Huntington said he had not seen the study released by Environment Maine and could not comment on it directly.
Cameron Wake of the University of New Hampshire is among the climate scientists who, using different methods, documented a similar increase in severe and costly storms in New England.
"They're not good for our agricultural systems, they're not good for our ecosystems and they're not good for our infrastructure," Wake said. "This is what we expect is going to happen, and it is what's happening."
Scientific models also project more dry periods between the severe storms, so that summer droughts may become more common, and floods as well.
Scientists also have said that Maine's precipitation will shift from snow to rain as the climate changes.
The findings that we're getting more big storms isn't news to Bob Bohlmann, director of the York County Emergency Management Agency.
His agency faced back-to-back flooding disasters, on Mother's Day in May 2006 and on Patriot's Day in April 2007.
"They were a 100-year storm and a 500-year storm within 11 months of each other," he said.
The county and state sought federal aid for flooded neighborhoods, washed-out roads and bridges, and coastal erosion that took out sea walls, roads and homes.There also have been a number of 50-year storms, Bohlmann said.
"I'm not sure whether it's just a cycle of bad storms," he said. "I'm not in the science business, I'm in the response business, and it's affecting us."
Bohlmann has paid attention to the predictions about global warming and New England storms.
"It is an interesting phenomenon and it's one that needs to be watched. From our perspective, we need to have people prepared," he said.
"Regardless of what's giving it to you, you've got to be ready. Maybe we need to get more ready," he...
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