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Warmer summers with more days above 90 degrees. Milder winters. Flowers without the insects they need for pollination. Uncertainty.

That's what Miami University climate scientists said Southwest Ohio residents can expect as global warming continues to drive up temperatures over the next decades.

"The consensus is global warming is happening now," said Hays Cummins, a professor with the university's School of Interdisciplinary Studies. "We are a major role player ... There's no doubt about it."

But climatologists still debate how quickly warming will occur and how major a role humans are playing, said Cummins and fellow oceanographer Mark Boardman, director of Miami's Institute of Environmental Sciences and a geology department professor.

"We're opening ourselves up to a lot of climatic uncertainties," Cummins said. "It's going to be different."

Scientists use ice cores taken from ancient Arctic glaciers to determine past levels of carbon dioxide, a chief greenhouse gas, Boardman said.

"There's no argument that it's rising," he said. "Our atmosphere today has never been seen before by Homosapiens."

Boardman worries the changes in temperature and rainfall will come too fast for some species to adapt. If a plant comes out in the spring when the days get longer but the animal that depends on it for food comes out of hibernation as soon as its warm enough, that animal could wind up starving waiting for its food source to appear.

"There are hundreds of these matches," he said.

Jason Rech, who studies deserts and teaches in the geology department, said warmer temperatures could increase precipitation in northern regions of the globe but arid countries closer the equator could get even drier.

His research shows precipitation dropping in Jordan about 20 percent by the end of the century while it's population is expected to double in just the next 25 years. Changes like that will likely drive political instability and could lead to military conflicts across the globe.

"A lot of the countries that are being affected are not the countries contributing to the problem," he said.

All three climatologists said there's still time to put the brakes on warming and avert the worst outcomes. You may not see a difference in your lifetime but it will effect the world your children inherit, Boardman said.

With politicians focused on the war and economy, Cummins said it's up to people to take up the cause by conserving energy.

"Since we don't have any leadership on this it all starts with people," he said.

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