The Climatologist

We determined the first thing our team needed to do was talk to someone who knew something about the local climate. We spoke to Mr. Mark Malsick in October from the state climatology office and he told us the following:

There are many trends in the temperature data--going back to 1898 across our state. We looked at graphs from Charleston and Summerville and could see various warming trends like the one that occurred from 1898 to 1920 and cooling trends like the one in the 1970s. The warming trend of the early 20th century occurred at a time when we weren't putting much Carbon into the atmosphere.

We may be in a warming trend but the current data is inconclusive. Temperature graphs across the state show both warming and cooling. In Beaufort, the trend is cooling, while Summerville is seeing warming. The SC average temperatures over the last 100+ years have varied 6 degrees. If we are warming, Mr. Malsick predicts that we will see more "tropical" type species of plants, insects and animals like alligators. Migrating species may stay longer. Some species will have a longer growing season to damage the native environment.

Now we had an understanding of climate change in our state.