THOMAS FRANK / E&E NEWS – Scientists at the NOAA-affiliated Northeast Regional Climate Center issued a recent report about rainfall in New Jersey that reached two troubling conclusions.

Precipitation in New Jersey was likely to increase 20 percent by 2100, the report found two months ago. And precipitation records maintained by NOAA — which are used nationwide to design infrastructure and map flood zones — are inaccurate, are outdated and underestimate potential flooding.

“One of the consequences of climate change is that we can no longer assume that what has happened in the past is a guide to the future,” Anthony Broccoli, co-director of the Rutgers Climate Institute, said at the time …