While it’s little relief to people sweating through another South Mississippi summer, Marion County’s average temperature has actually decreased slightly over the past century, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal climate data.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows a 0.1 degree Fahrenheit decrease in average temperatures in Marion County between 1895 and 2018.
That’s compared to a 3.6 degree increase nationwide.
The West and Northeast, have heated more rapidly, while the South has mostly stayed flat or cooled.
The Washington Post provided this explanation for the cooling: “Scientists have attributed this ‘warming hole’ to atmospheric cycles driven by the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, along with particles of soot from smokestacks and tailpipes, which have damaging health effects but can block some of the sun’s intensity. Those types of pollutants were curtailed by environmental policies, while carbon dioxide remained unregulated for decades. Since the 1960s, however, the region’s temperatures have been increasing along with the rest of the country’s.”
