Terminator Lauds Snowe/Collins on Global Warming

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Average temperatures across California rose slightly from 1950 to 2000, with the greatest warming coming in the state's big cities and mostly caused by urbanization -- not greenhouse gases -- authors of a study released on Wednesday said.

"Everybody's talking about the carbon coming out of the SUV exhaust or the coal plant, but in the past 50 years in California the bigger impact has been urbanization and suburbanization," said Bill Patzert of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, one of the study's authors.

One of the fundamental components that sets a city apart from its rural surroundings is the climate that prevails over urban environments. In urban areas, buildings and paved surfaces have gradually replaced preexisting natural landscapes. As a result, solar energy is absorbed into roads and rooftops, causing the surface temperature of urban structures to become 50 - 70 °F higher than the ambient air temperatures.

The resulting higher temperature caused by the urban heat island has the effect of increasing the demand for cooling energy in commercial and residential buildings. Increased demand for energy can cost consumers and municipalities thousands of additional dollars in air conditioning bills in order to maintain comfort levels. In addition, increased electricity generation by power plants leads to higher emissions of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides, and suspended particulates, as well as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas known to contribute to global warming and climate change.