Warming in state monitored

Average temperatures for Las Vegas last summer were 3.6 degrees warmer than the city's 30-year average while Reno's were 6.9 degrees above normal, a public interest watchdog organization reported Tuesday.

"Global warming is rewriting record books in Nevada and across the country," Jill Bunting, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, said in a statement about the report.

She predicted Nevada will see more severe heat waves that will increase the risks for wildfires, drought and heat-related illnesses.

The group's statement quotes Steve Rowland, geology professor a the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who said the "scientific evidence of global warming is incontrovertible and Nevada is feeling the heat more intensely than most of the rest of the U.S."

"Only a tiny bit of this increase in temperature can be attributed to increased urbanization, the so-called urban heat-island effect," Rowland said. "Global warming is here and we better get serious about confronting it."

The group's study found that last year's above average temperatures are part of a broader warming trend since 2000. Last summer, Elko was, on average, 4 degrees above normal and Ely was 2.1 degrees hotter.