The Year 2050

artgeis

Oct 11

2 min read

Updated: 6 days ago

I’m starting to do research for my third book in the Dr. Julie McCray series. It’s set in 2049 so I’m trying to get an accurate picture of what the environment will be like.

I’ve put the references at the end. NCA stands for the National Climate Assessment originally found in climate.org. I started with a focus on the Western United States. The main theme is:

The West in 2050: Hotter, Thirstier, Smokier, With a Warmer Pacific

By 2050 the West will be noticeably hotter under every emissions scenario, per IPCC AR6. In California, average daily highs for 2040–2069 are projected to run about 4.4°F above the historical average under moderate emissions and 5.8°F under high emissions. Heat waves will intensify. The 2021 Northwest heat dome killed almost a thousand people, and heat deaths are expected to rise under all scenarios.

Water is the central challenge. More precipitation will fall as rain, and snow will melt earlier across the Cascades, Sierra Nevada and Rockies. By 2050, the Sierra's snowpack is projected to hold less than two-thirds of the water it historically averaged. Colorado River flow drops roughly 9.3% per 1°C of warming, deepening drought. Climate change already explains about half the recent increase in western area burned, and severe fires and smoky days will keep increasing. Floods worsen too: warming has already roughly doubled the odds of a catastrophic atmospheric-river megaflood in California.

Sea level along the West Coast is expected to rise 4–8 inches above 2020 levels by 2050, making high-tide flooding more frequent. Offshore, the California Current is warming, and marine heatwaves, already twice as frequent globally as in the 1980s, will become more frequent and longer. The 2014–2016 "Blob" brought toxic algal blooms, crab-fishery closures and seabird die-offs. Acidification and low-oxygen events already stress shellfish.

Regional rainfall and future heat-dome frequency remain uncertain. Lower and higher emissions paths diverge mostly after midcentury, so today's choices mainly decide how much worse things get after 2050.

In The Rocket Scientist, and the sequel, The Martian Solution, the world faces exactly this kind of heat, drought, and failing crops pins its hopes on a microbe from Mars that pulls carbon dioxide out of the sky. That’s my fictional remedy. However, real solutions are slower and harder.

The future described here is one reason I wrote The Rocket Scientist, a near-future science fiction thriller in which the discovery of living microbes on Mars offers humanity a possible solution to Earth's climate crisis. But the discovery also triggers an international struggle for control, with consequences no one could have anticipated.

Discover The Rocket Scientist: