Peak summer temperatures in Atlanta and the Southeast could reach as high as 110 degrees if climate change continues at its current pace, NASA scientists warned Wednesday.

A new computer analysis by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York suggests that during July and August, maximum daily temperatures could average 100 to 110 degrees in cities like Atlanta and as far north as Washington and Chicago, making once-rare temperatures more commonplace.

The hottest temperature recorded in Atlanta in the last 77 years was a stifling 105-degree reading on July 13, 1980. Elsewhere — most recently in Greenville, in Meriwether County, in August 1983 — the temperature has actually reached a scorching 112, which is the all-time state record.

Based on the latest NASA analysis, however record setting temperatures like those could become regular features of summer heat waves.

Although models of global warming often predict higher average temperatures as the world warms, the latest study is one of the first to look at potential weather extremes on a regional basis.

The findings, in fact, are so recent that they were not included in this year's report on the impacts of warming issued last month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"Our analysis shows that there is the potential for extremely hot summertime temperatures, especially during summers with less-than-average rainfall," said NASA researcher Barry Lynn.

Daily high summer temperatures throughout the eastern United States currently average in the low to mid-80s, but the NASA researchers found that if greenhouse gases continue to increase, the peak temperatures of summer heat waves would average 10 degrees higher by the year 2080 — a level that previous studies have warned could alter the shape of agriculture, power consumption, and human health.

The researchers say the projected increase would push the maximum summer temperatures throughout the eastern United States, from Florida to Pennsylvania, to as high as 100 degrees — and to as high as 110 in a smaller area that includes Georgia, the Deep South and Texas.

Assuming that carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase at the current rate, about 2 percent a year, the researchers analyzed a host of interrelated factors, ranging from soil moisture, land and sea-surface temperatures, rainfall, cloud cover, and the projected increases in heat-trapping gases.

"Using high resolution weather prediction models, we showed how greenhouse gases enhance feedbacks between precipitation, radiation, and atmospheric circulation that will likely lead to extreme temperatures in our not-so-distant future," says Lynn.