Skip to main content

Global warming: what will change?

New Scientist had a particularly chilling map showing what the climate models predict the world would be like with a 4 degree centigrade warming:

New Scientist projection of effects of Global Warming if the world warms by 4 degrees C.

(Click on images to expand them). The New Scientist article includes a lot of rather utopian speculation about what will be done in response to desertification, such as the Russians being happy to take billions of refugees and the world being happy to put billions of pounds worth of solar cells in North Africa and the Middle East. China and India are expanding emissions at such a rate that 4 degrees C is quite likely by the end of the century.

I was inclined to think that the New Scientist map was a bit overly pessimistic but the World Bank has come up with a similar pattern for declining agricultural production by 2050 at current rates of CO2 emissions:

World Bank projection of effects of global warming on agricultural yields and food production by 2050 at current rates of CO2 emissions.
The FAO has a similarly optimistic outlook for the next 20 years with declining production of biomass per head except in Russia:

Net primary production of biomass per capita percent change (from 1961–1990 mean to 2030): data compiled and adjusted by FAO Environment, Climate Change and Bioenergy Division, based on “World maps of climatological net primary production of biomass (NPP)” (2006) available at http://www.fao.org/NR/climpag/globgrids/NPP_en.asp

  This might worry some people but fortunately most people have accepted that global warming is a conspiracy.

Four Degrees and Beyond

The Royal Society had an issue back in January 2011 that explored what might happen if Global Warming were to exceed 4 degrees centigrade called Four degrees and beyond: the potential for a global temperature increase of four degrees and its implications. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A January 13, 2011 369 3; doi:10.1098/rsta.2010.0289 .

The issue starts with: "Even with strong political will, the chances of shifting the global energy system fast enough to avoid 2°C are slim. Trajectories that result in eventual temperature rises of 3°C or 4°C are much more likely, and the implications of these larger temperature changes require serious consideration." (New et al).

We are currently on the highest of the projected emissions scenarios called A1F1 thanks to the industrialisation of Asia.  The issue predicts that: "...our best estimate is that the A1FI emissions scenario would lead to a warming of 4°C relative to pre-industrial during the 2070s. If carbon-cycle feedbacks are stronger, which appears less likely but still credible, then 4°C warming could be reached by the early 2060s in projections that are consistent with the IPCC’s ‘likely range’." (Betts et al).

The availability of water declines over much of the world:

Global warming, projections of rainfall in 2060. Click to view larger image, data from Fung et al.
Notice that this recent forecast is far more optimistic about the future of India and China than the New Scientist article.  Africa and the Amazon look a bit grim...

Interested in global warming? You might also like:

The Melting of Arctic Ice - You Probably Should Panic
The Evidence for Global Warming. (1) the Himalayas
The Evidence for Global Warming. (2) Analysis using source data for global changes
Global warming (3) man or nature?
The strange case of the missing CO2

Is climate change a threat because of overpopulation?
Blue Haze, Brown Clouds and the need to stop Geoengineering before it begins.
Global warming: what do we do now?

14/8/2012

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Practical Idealism by Richard Nicolaus Coudenhove-Kalergi

Coudenhove-Kalergi was a pioneer of European integration. He was the founder and President for 49 years of the Paneuropean Union. His parents were Heinrich von Coudenhove-Kalergi, an Austro-Hungarian diplomat, and Mitsuko Aoyama, the daughter of an oil merchant, antiques-dealer, and huge landowner family in Tokyo. His "Pan-Europa" was published in 1923 and contained a membership form for the Pan-Europa movement. Coudenhove-Kalergi's movement held its first Congress in Vienna in 1926. In 1927 the French Prime Minister, Aristide Briand was elected honorary president.  Personalities attending included: Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann and Sigmund Freud. Figures who later became central to founding the EU, such as Konrad Adenauer became members . His basic idea was that democracy was a transitional stage that leads to rule by a new aristocracy that is largely taken from the Jewish "master race" (Kalergi's terminology). His movement was reviled by Hitler and H

The Falklands have always been Argentine - Las Malvinas son Argentinas

"The Falklands have always been Argentine" is taught to every Argentine child as a matter of faith.  What was Argentina during the time when it "always" possessed Las Malvinas?  In this article I will trace the history of Argentina in the context of its physical and political relationship with "Las Malvinas", the Falkland Islands.  The Argentine claim to the Falkland Islands dates from a brief episode in 1831-32 so it is like Canada claiming the USA despite two centuries of separate development. This might sound like ancient history but Argentina has gone to war for this ancient claim so the following article is well worth reading. For a summary of the legal case see: Las Malvinas: The Legal Case Argentina traces its origins to Spanish South America when it was part of the Viceroyalty of the Rio del Plata.  The Falklands lay off the Viceroyalty of Peru, controlled by the Captain General of Chile.  In 1810 the Falklands were far from the geographical b

The Report on Racism

The " Report by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities " has just been published.  The Commissioners were nearly all from BAME backgrounds and have produced a robust and fair Report. The Report identified a class divide in which the cycle of advantage maintains a section of the population in wealth and leaves the large bulk of the population in relative poverty.   The wealthy class is largely white British but the poorer class consists of large numbers of white British and other ethnic groups.  This class divide causes a bias in the crude statistics on disadvantage so that majority, poor white British are labelled as "white supremacists" etc. when it is the small wealthy class that actually creates the disparity that causes this analysis. The most striking finding is that different ethnic groups had very different experiences and outcomes.  Educational outcomes demonstrate this at a glance: Red text added for this article Most ethnic groups had better outcome