Can you imagine Rhode Island with no lobsters in its waters? With winters dominated by much more rain and much less snow? With fruit crops unable to flourish and beaches being washed away?

Those were some of the predictions in a new report issued yesterday by scientists working on the local aspects of the predicted consequences of global climate change.

The Cambridge-based, Union of Concerned Scientists, which describes itself as the leading science-based nonprofit organization working for a healthy environment, issued a 145-page report yesterday called “Confronting Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast — Science, Impacts, and Solutions.”

The report does not simply replicate the findings of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which issued a major update on global warming this year. The UCS says its report stems from a collaboration of its scientists and dozens of independent scientists doing peer-reviewed research around the country.

The report can be found at: www.climatechoices.org.

Last fall, the same group used sophisticated computer models to focus on predicted temperature changes in New England. It concluded that even if emissions of greenhouse gases were reduced, summers in Rhode Island will resemble those in Virginia by the end of the century; if emissions are not reduced, summers will be more similar to the steamy summers in South Carolina.

Yesterday’s report concludes that average temperatures have been rising for the last few decades, more in the winter than the summer.

If high emissions continue, the scientists predict that by late in the century, winters in the Northeast could warm by 8 to 12 degrees Fahrenheit, winters in northern New England could be shortened by half, and cities across the Northeast could average 20 days each summer with temperatures above 100 degrees.

The increasing high-heat days also pose higher risks to Rhode Islanders of heat stress and heart attack, according to the scientists.

The scientists believe precipitation during the winters will increase by 20 to 30 percent, but less will fall as snow and more as rain.

“Rhode Island could see its snow season reduced to just a handful of days per winter month by mid-century, and virtually eliminated by late-century,” according to the report.

More heavy, damaging rainfalls are also predicted. And in the summers, higher temperatures are expected to cause more short-term droughts of one to three months.

Sea levels are expected to rise by 7 to 14 inches by the end of the century under the low-emissions scenario. If high emissions continue, sea levels could increase from 10 inches to 2 feet, according to the report. (Neither projection accounts for the recently observed melting of the world’s ice sheets.)

Along with the rising sea levels, there should be more frequent and severe storm surges and coastal flooding.

Sea-level rise could lead to the permanent inundation of barrier beaches such as Misquamicut State Beach, the report said.

Lobster stocks are expected to collapse entirely as waters will heat beyond their threshold under both emissions scenarios by the middle of the century.

Farmers should benefit from a longer growing season, but they’ll have to spend more on irrigation. Fruit crops that require a certain number of hours each winter of cold temperatures for optimal flowering will be harmed by warming temperatures.

The state can help lessen those impacts, the report says, by working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by following Governor Carcieri’s call to generate 20 percent of the state’s electricity through renewable resources. The state should also strengthen its building codes to require more “green” building standards and adopt standards to reduce emissions from vehicles.

Matt Auten, of Environment Rhode Island, said the scientists couldn’t have picked a better day to release the report, with Rhode Island having some above-average weather.

Catherine Bowes, of the National Wildlife Federation, issued a statement from Montpelier, Vt., saying the findings confirm that unless action is taken, there will be severe consequences. “The cascade of evidence should overcome any question that we must act now to reduce global-warming pollution.”

Local experts who contributed to the report include James McCarthy of Harvard University; Jerry Melillo of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole; Cameron Wake and Scott Ollinger at the University of New Hampshire; Bruce Anderson at Boston University; James Bradbury, Ellen Gougas, Allan Gontz, Yong Tian and Chris Watson at the University of Massachusetts; Paul Kirshen and William Moomaw at Tufts University; Andrew Ashton, Jeff Donnelly and Rob Evans at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Nicholas Rodenhouse at Wellesley College; Gary Yohe at Wesleyan University and Paul Epstein at Harvard Medical School.

plord@projo.com