Sunny day flooding in Ocean City during evening high tide on June 12, 2018. Photo courtesy of Suzanne Leary Hornick.

By Carla Astudillo and Michael Sol Warren

Rising seas, stronger storms and increased health risks.

These are just some of the things that climate change may cause.

But most conversations about the health of the planet and its changing climate focus on the global scale. So what exactly does climate change mean for New Jersey?

A new analysis released Monday by the Associated Press breaks down how temperatures have risen around the U.S. over the past century.

The numbers show that New Jersey is among the fastest warming states in the country.

Here’s what the ever-rising mercury means for life in the Garden State.

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Temperature Change 1988-2017

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How the AP's analysis works

The AP used data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to establish how annual average temperatures have changed from 1988 to 2017. The AP then compared that finding to average temperatures from 1901 to 1960, further illustrating how temperatures have changed since the Industrial Age.

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The Garden State's rapid warming

According to the AP analysis, the average monthly temperature in New Jersey rose nearly 2.19 degrees farenheit from 1988 to 2017.

That level of warming is striking when compared to the nationwide average, which rose 1.6 degrees farenheit in the same time frame.

In fact, the AP found that New Jersey was the third-fastest warming state in the nation, coming behind only Alaska and Vermont. Overall, New Jersey was 2.23 degrees fahrenheit warmer between 1988 and 2017 than it was from 1901 to 1960.

The Garden State is in a prime spot for accelerated warming according to David Robinson, the New Jersey state climatologist. Warmer air has the potential to hold more water vapor, and New Jersey’s abundance of water makes the increased humidity a reality. Water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas, trapping heat in the atmosphere that would otherwise dissipate. New Jersey is caught in a vicious cycle: More heat means more humidity, and more humidity means more heat.

But the numbers go deeper. NOAA splits New Jersey into three divisions (northern, southern and coastal) for tracking temperature change. All three of the Garden State regions are among the fastest heating divisions in the nation.

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The coastal division

The Coastal New Jersey Climate Division is defined by NOAA as the shoreline areas in Monmouth, Ocean, Atlantic and Cape May Counties. The average monthly temperature in the division rose 2.29 degrees from 1988 to 2017, making it the seventh fastest-warming of NOAA’s 344 climate divisions.

The numbers for the coastal division should be taken with a grain of salt, according to Robinson, because the sample size for the data is small. The division is small, just a sliver of land east of the Garden State Parkway, and it doesn’t have nearly as many weather stations as the state’s two other divisions.

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Raw video of sunny day flooding in Ocean City, filmed by Suzanne Leary Hornick on June 11, 2018. The weather that day was a high around 70 degrees fahrenheit with no precipitation.

Sea level rise may already be here

For the coastal division the story of climbing temperatures is told through rising sea levels, and the most direct impact that rising oceans has on local residents is increasing sunny day flooding when low-lying roads and properties are flooded for no reason other than the tides.

“It’s not uncommon for me not to be able to get out,” said Suzanne Leary Hornick, an Ocean City resident. “We’re not having any rain and I’m still flooding everyday, twice a day at high tide.”

Hornick, who has lived full-time in Ocean City for five years and before regularly visited since the 1960s, is a leader for a group of Ocean City residents concerned about the nuisance flooding. On Facebook, the related Ocean City, NJ Flooding group currently has more than 2,000 members.

“It has been exponentially worse over the years and over the decades,” Hornick said.

Hornick said the flooding situation is becoming increasingly untenable, and said she wants to see the local government adopt a more comprehensive flood control plan than the one it is currently working with.

“I want what every tax payer deserves," Hornick said. "I want a self and healthy environment for all of us.”

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The southern division

The Southern New Jersey Climate division is defined by NOAA as all of the South Jersey counties, not including the shoreline areas that make up the Coastal division. That means Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cumberland, Gloucester, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean and Salem. The AP found that this region’s average monthly temperatures rose 2.22 degrees fahrenheit, making it the 16th fastest warming of all the NOAA divisions.

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The pine barrens' future at risk

The pine barrens, arguably South Jersey’s defining ecosystem, could be decimated in the future as warming allows the invasive Southern Pine Beetle to expand.

The beetles are typically kept in check by a few extremely cold nights each winter that freeze and kill the overwintering bugs. But according to Matthews Ayres, a Dartmouth College professor who studies the spread of the beetles in New Jersey, those extreme colds are now harder to come by, and the beetle population is continuing to expand in the Garden State.

According to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the beetle returned to the Garden State in 2001 and has been spreading through the state ever since.

Pine forests cover about 440,000 acres in South Jersey; the beetle now affects more than 25,000 acres of that. In 2010, the bugs were found north of the Egg Harbor River for the first time. Now, the NJDEP is trying to combat the pests through a combination of forest management techniques.

“If this were to spread without any kind of checks, we could lose and important ecosystem," said NJDEP Spokesman Larry Hajna. "The pine barrens could become the oak barrens.”

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The northern division

NOAA defines the Northern New Jersey Climate Division as, you guessed it, all of the state’s northern counties. That means Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Morris, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, Union and Warren Counties. From 1988 to 2017, the northern division warmed by 2.15 degrees Fahrenheit. That's the 27th largest increase among all of the NOAA divisions.

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Feeling the heat in N.J. cities

Rising temperatures will be exacerbated in the northern portion of the state, where the largest populations centers are found. Places like Newark, Jersey City and Hoboken all have to deal with the Urban Heat Island Effect: the phenomenon of urban centers reaching higher temperatures and staying warmer longer than suburban and rural areas. That heat increases the health risk to people living in those areas; it's part of the reason why heat waves have become deadlier in recent years.

It's not just the sheer heat that threatens human health: The rising temperatures can also worsen air pollution by helping to produce more ozone, a pollutant that has been described as "sunburn for the lungs."

One of the most effective ways to combat the Urban Heat Island Effect is with trees, which reduce the heat islands, provide shade, clean the surrounding air and provide more habitat for wildlife. Hajna said that NJDEP maintains an active urban forestry program for all of these reasons.

“One of our bigger goals is to create forests where possible in urban areas,” Hajna said.

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More warming on the way

None of this appears to be going away: All signs point to continued warming in New Jersey and around the world.

“There’s no question in my mind and that of the mainstream science community that we’re going to continue warming,” Robinson said.

Robinson said that New Jersey’s future climate will likely become similar to the current situation in Washington, D.C. and Richmond, Virginia. Summers are expected to become hotter and drier, while winters should get warmer and wetter.

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Looking for more on climate change in the Garden State?

These trees don't like saltwater: Why sections of the Pine Barrens are turning into "ghost forests"

Fish on the move: Your dinner might be swimming north thanks to climate change

Keep an eye on the air you breathe: It causes "sunburn for the lungs." It's getting worse in N.J.

Carla Astudillo may be reached at castudillo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @carla_astudi. Find her on Facebook.

Michael Sol Warren may be reached at mwarren@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MSolDub.