By Sid Perkins
Predicted increases in rain in parts of the Midwest may reduce the temperature effect that scientists expect from global warming during the next few decades.
Computer simulations of the climate in the lower 48 United States suggest that if atmospheric concentrations of planet-warming carbon dioxide rise about 1 percent per year, the average temperature across the region will be about 3°C hotter in the 2040s than it was in the 1990s, says Zaitao Pan, a climatologist at St. Louis University.