'More disasters' for warmer world
Pastor Dale Morgan
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*'More disasters' for warmer world*
A warmer world could make wildfires more frequent, research shows
BBC - Rising temperatures will increase the risk of forest fires,
droughts and flooding over the coming decades, UK climate scientists
have warned.
Even if harmful emissions were cut now, many parts of the world would
face a greater risk of natural disasters, a team from Bristol University
said.
The projections are based on data from more than 50 climate models
looking at the impact of greenhouse gas emissions.
The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers gathered results from 52 computer simulations to
calculate the risks from climate-induced changes to the world's key
ecosystems.
They then grouped the results according to the amount of global warming:
less than 2C (3.6F); 2-3C (3.6F-5.4F); and more than 3C (5.4F).
For each of the temperature ranges, the team assessed the probability of
changes in forest cover, the frequency of wildfires and changes to
freshwater supplies over the coming years.
'Dangerous climate change'
Marko Scholze, from the University of Bristol's Department of Earth
Sciences, and the paper's lead author, said the findings revealed a
direct link between rises in global temperature and damage to ecosystems.
"We show the steeply increasing risks, and increasingly large areas
affected, associated with higher warming levels," he told BBC News.
"The United Nations says we should limit greenhouse gas emissions so we
do not have dangerous climate change. So the question is 'what is
dangerous climate change?'.
"In this paper we define the level we think is dangerous and see how
likely it will come true."
Richard Betts, manager of Climate Impacts at the Met Office's Hadley
Centre, welcomed the findings.
"This makes an important new contribution to the debate on the effects
of climate change," he said.
"We already knew that we cannot rely on just one model, as different
models give different answers.
We do have to make decisions on climate change now so if we wait for the
perfect model we will be too late
Dr Richard Betts, Hadley Centre
"This work helps us go beyond that vague statement, as it shows how much
the models agree on particular levels of impact and how much they disagree."
He said the research was an important first step towards quantifying the
risks of damaging impacts associated with particular levels of global
warming.
The findings showed areas that would experience the worst forest loss
would include Eurasia, eastern China, Canada and the Amazon.
Areas of western Africa, southern Europe and eastern US states were at
most risk from dwindling freshwater supplies and droughts as a result of
rising temperatures.
The data also showed that any temperature increase of more than 3C
(5.4F) could result in land "carbon sinks" releasing their stored carbon
into the atmosphere, exacerbating the problem of global warming.
Dr Scholze hoped the collated data would answer some of the concerns
among more sceptical members of the scientific community who questioned
the accuracy of climatic modelling.
"That is exactly why we did this study," he said. "We used as many
models as we could and did not rely on any one study.
"We looked at 52 simulations and the probabilities of dangerous climate
change these models showed."
Dr Betts agreed: "Of course it is risky to make these projections when
models are continuously being changed, but we do have to make decisions
on climate change now so if we wait for the perfect model we will be too
late.
"The models give the best encapsulation of current understanding of the
climate system, and are the only way of assessing physically plausible
futures."
Dr Scholze said he hoped the findings would be used in debates on
dangerous climate change and the measures needed to avoid it.