Global warming forecasts: disasters, diseases
Submitted by Martin on Tue, 10/10/2006 - 18:15
Time for a thread on forecasts re impact of global warming. New forecast just released re Asia Pacific, including:
Quote:
Millions of people in the Asia-Pacific region could be forced from their homes and suffer increasing disease, cyclones and floods caused by global warming, scientists warned today.Climate change will seriously threaten regional human security and national economies this century, according to a report by Australia's national research agency, the CSIRO.
"Chronic food and water insecurity and epidemic disease may impede economic development in some nations," the report says.
"Degraded landscapes and inundation of populated areas by rising seas may ultimately displace millions of individuals, forcing intra- and inter-state migration."
The report, commissioned by a coalition of environmental, aid, church and development groups, analyses predictions of temperature increases of up to 2°C by 2030 and up to 7°C by 2070.
...
Temperatures are likely to rise more quickly in the arid areas of northern Pakistan and India and western China, according to the report.But the region will also be affected by a rise in the global sea level of up to 16 cm by 2030 and by up to 50 cm in 2070, along with regional variables.
Preston said two studies contained in the report estimate that a sea-level rise of a metre would displace between 75 million and 150 million people in the Asia-Pacific region.
Most at risk are the low-lying river deltas of Bangladesh, India, Vietnam and China, as well as the small Pacific island states.
Global warming disaster looms for Asia-Pacific
Post edited by: martin, at: 2006/11/05 02:24
Comments
Risk to human health, society and environment increases w temp
From The TImes, on new US Environment Protection Agency report that - surprise! - the Bush administration had sought to keep quiet.
Government scientists wrangle with White House over climate health dangers
Global warming could cause wars lasting centuries
So, you thought the future looked grim in Terminator?
From report in Daily Telegraph:
'Tenfold R&D rise needed for climate change'
Sea level to rise by more than IPCC forecasts
from BBC site:
This is substantially more than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecast in last year's landmark assessment of climate science.
...
The new analysis comes from a UK/Finnish team which has built a computer model linking temperatures to sea levels for the last two millennia.
"For the past 2,000 years, the [global average] sea level was very stable, it only varied by about 20cm," said Svetlana Jevrejeva from the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory (POL), near Liverpool, UK.
"But by the end of the century, we predict it will rise by between 0.8m and 1.5m.
"The rapid rise in the coming years is associated with the rapid melting of ice sheets."
Forecast for big sea level ri
Climate change presents new challenges re stability
Report from Oxford Research Group forecast climate change problems could include serious security consequences (civil unrest, intercommunal violence, and international instability). V brief summary:
An Uncertain Future: Law Enforcement, National Security and Climate Change
Climate change to transform California landscape
Some predictions for likely transformations to impact California - surely give some indication of the kinds of radical changes likely in many places:
Where celebrities, surfers and wannabes mingle on Malibu's world-famous beaches, there may be only sea walls defending fading mansions from the encroaching Pacific. In Northern California, tourists could have to drive farther north or to the cool edge of the Pacific to find what is left of the region's signature wine country.
Abandoned ski lifts might dangle above snowless trails more suitable for mountain biking even during much of the winter. In the deserts, Joshua trees that once extended their tangled, shaggy arms into the sky by the thousands may have all but disappeared.
Global Warming to Alter Calif. Landscape
Hooker shortages n melting ice n species going n earth in pe
Alternet has long list of predictions re global warming, from the Center for American Progress. A few seem trivial; most serious. Include:
Top 100 Ways Global Warming Will Change Your Life
Climate change could threaten food production
Not real surprising to anyone familiar with global warming issue. From Food and Agriculture Organisation:
Living with climate change
Adaptation strategies needed to build resilience
Heart troubles may increase with warming
Global Warming May Pose Threat to Heart
More severe US storms forecast
From CNN:
While other research has warned of broad weather changes on a large scale, like more extreme hurricanes and droughts, the new study predicts even smaller events like thunderstorms will be more dangerous because of global warming.
The basic ingredients for whopper U.S. inland storms are likely to be more plentiful in a warmer, moister world, said lead author Tony Del Genio, a NASA research scientist.
And when that happens, watch out.
"The strongest thunderstorms, the strongest severe storms and tornadoes are likely to happen more often and be stronger," Del Genio said in an interview Thursday from his office at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. The paper he co-authored was published online this month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Other scientists caution that this area of climate research is too difficult and new for this study to be definitive. But some upcoming studies also point in the same direction.
Study: Global warming could bring more severe U.S. storms
Presumably, similar scenarios can be expected for other places - inc China, say, which this year has experienced several major thunderstorms associated with summer flooding.
China grain harvest to fall with warming
From China Daily report:
"Global warming may cause the grain harvest to fall by 5 to 10 percent, that is by 30-50 million tons, by 2030," said Zheng Guoguang, head of the State Meteorological Administration.
And since the population is expected to peak at 1.5 billion in 2030, 200 million more than now, the country would need to produce an additional 100 million tons of food to feed them.
...
"Warmer weather will shorten the growth period of some grains and their seeds won't have enough time to ripen."
The swarm of insects will increase, too, because warmer winters will enable them to be active in spring, Zheng said.
Also, a 1 C rise in temperature would hasten the speed of ground water evaporation by 7 percent and that would greatly affect grain production, he said.
More arable land 'needed' by 2030
Climate change will hurt Africa
Panel Says Climate Change Will Hurt Africa
Christian Aid forecasts world of many more Darfurs
World facing worst migration crisis - you can download the report here
Post edited by: Martin, at: 2007/05/16 14:37
Some climates to vanish as new ones emerge
Even as idiots argue that global warming's a swindle and a scam, the science gets scarier.
Global climate models for the next century forecast the complete disappearance of several existing climates currently found in tropical highlands and regions near the poles, while large swaths of the tropics and subtropics may develop new climates unlike anything seen today. Driven by worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, the climate modeling study uses average summer and winter temperatures and precipitation levels to map the differences between climate zones today and in the year 2100 and anticipates large climate changes worldwide.
,,,
The most severely affected parts of the world span both heavily populated regions, including the southeastern United States, southeastern Asia and parts of Africa, and known hotspots of biodiversity, such as the Amazonian rainforest and African and South American mountain ranges. The changes predicted by the new study anticipate dramatic ecological shifts, with unknown but probably extensive effects on large segments of the Earth's population.
"All policy and management strategies are based on current conditions," Williams says, adding that regions with the largest changes are where these strategies and models are most likely to fail. "How do you make predictions for these areas of the unknown?"
...
The underlying effect is clear, Williams says, noting, "More carbon dioxide in the air means more risk of entirely new climates or climates disappearing."
In general, the models show that existing climate zones will shift toward higher latitudes and higher elevations, squeezing out the climates at the extremes — tropical mountaintops and the poles — and leaving room for unfamiliar climes around the equator.
Global warming forecasts creation, loss of climate zones
Yields of major crops falling as world warms
from the Independent:
World's most important crops hit by global warming effects
for abstract of paper, and link to full paper (for which need subscription):
Global scale climate–crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming
Changes in the global production of major crops are important drivers of food prices, food security and land use decisions.
A tenth of Indonesian islands may be inundated
The assessment by Rachmat Witoelar was the government's bleakest yet of the effects of global warming on the Southeast Asian nation that is made up of some 18,000 islands, most of them unpopulated.
...
The environment minister also said rice shortages are forecast for next year because of wild weather blamed on climate change.
Global warming may affect Indonesia isles
Dire set of predictions for Europe
Financial Times, on report to be released next week by European Commission:
EU’s grim climate change warning
Post edited by: Martin, at: 2007/01/06 21:33
Jim Hansen predicts we may change the planet
Also from the Independent:
In an interview with The Independent, Jim Hansen, who was one of the first scientists to warn of climate change in scientific testimony to the US Congress in 1988, claimed that we have less than 10 years to begin to curb carbon dioxide emissions before global warming runs out of control and changes the landscape forever.
...
"If we follow business as usual, and we don't get off this course where year by year we're getting larger and larger emissions of CO2, then we'll have large sea-level rises this century and I think that will become more apparent over the next decade or two," Dr Hansen said.
"The last time it was 3C warmer, sea levels were 25 metres higher, plus or minus 10 metres. You'd not get that in one century, but you could get several metres in one century," he said.
'If we fail to act, we will end up with a different planet'
2007 may be hottest year on record
As yet another hot year for the planet has just ended, article in Independent suggests 2007 could set new high for hottest year on record worldwide:
...the forecast for the next 12 months is of extreme global weather patterns which could bring drought to Indonesia and leave California under a deluge.
The warning, from Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, was one of four sobering predictions from senior scientists and forecasters that 2007 will be a crucial year for determining the response to global warming and its effect on humanity.
Professor Jones said the long-term trend of global warming - already blamed for bringing drought to the Horn of Africa and melting the Arctic ice shelf - is set to be exacerbated by the arrival of El Niño, the phenomenon caused by above-average sea temperatures in the Pacific.
...
The warning of the escalating impact of global warming was echoed by Jim Hansen, the American scientist who, in 1988, was one of the first to warn of climate change.
In an interview with The Independent, Dr Hansen predicted that global warming would run out of control and change the planet for ever unless rapid action is taken to reverse the rise in carbon emissions.
World faces hottest year ever, as El Niño combines with global warmingPost edited by: Martin, at: 2007/01/01 20:21
Arctic summer ice may soon be history
a BBC news item includes:
Arctic sea ice 'faces rapid melt'
Insects may multiply with dire consequences
New research suggests insects could increase with warmer weather, leading to increases in threats such as disease transmission, and crop pests.
Global Warming Could Trigger Insect Population Boom
Stern warning - action needed to avert threats
A report for UK govt, by Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist for the World Bank, tells of massive, extremely expensive potential impacts from global warming - on a par with impacts of world wars or Great Depression. Possible to avert the worst impacts, but only if we take major action (yeah, right, like that's gonna happen!).
Potential effects include melting glaciers, rising sea levels - a major cause of displacing millions of people, major extinctions, and severe economic impacts. To avert these, wise to spend on counter-measures, even if around 1% of global GDP.
Summary - and links to more info - on BBC site at:
At-a-glance: The Stern Review
The world has to act now on climate change or face devastating economic consequences, according to a report compiled by Sir Nicholas Stern for the UK government.
We are in for a bad future
Latest global warming study predicts ’wild ride’ of droughts, heavy rain
Post edited by: martin, at: 2006/10/21 09:53
Re:Global warming disasters, diseases, refugees
Article in today's Independent on same topic
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1904957.ece
Climate change 'will cause refugee crisis'
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
Published: 20 October 2006
Mass movements of people across the world are likely to be one of the most dramatic effects of climate change in the coming century, a study suggests.
The report, from the aid agency Tearfund, raises the spectre of hundreds of millions of environmental refugees and says the main reason will be the effects of climate - from droughts and water shortages, from flooding and storm surges and from sea-level rise.
The study, "Feeling the Heat", says there are already an estimated 25 million environmental refugees, and this figure is likely to soar as rain patterns continue to change, floods and storms become more frequent and rising tides start to inundate low-lying countries such as Bangladesh or some of the Pacific islands.
Tearfund says that without urgent action, world governments will lose the fight to tackle the world water crisis and the growing threat of climate-change refugees in catastrophic numbers.
The report calls for governments at the UN Climate Change conference, beginning in Nairobi in a fortnight, to move towards a global framework for cutting climate-changing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that goes beyond the existing climate treaty, the Kyoto protocol, and to commit billions more to help poor countries adapt to the coming changes.
"There will be millions more thirsty, hungry and ill poor people living in high-risk areas of the world by the end of the century," the report says. "It makes sense politically, economically and morally, for governments to act with urgency now."
Andy Atkins, advocacy director of Tearfund, said one of the most devastating impacts of climate change was on water supply. "In some parts of the world, floods, storms and poor rainfall are beginning to have catastrophic effects, threatening the lives and livelihoods of millions of people," he said.
This process will be steadily exacerbated, the report says, by the differing yet equally serious changes predicted to be part of a warming world. While some parts of the globe may experience much less rainfall and thus drought, others regions will have much more intense rain likely to bring about flooding. Sea-level rise , which a recent report suggested could be up to 50cm by 2050, would at that rate breach 100,000 kms (62,000 miles) of coastline around the world.
The report says: "As floods, drought and storms increase climate change will have a potentially catastrophic impact on water supply, threatening the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. Poor people - like the 80 per cent of Malawi's population who farm small plots - are reliant on rain for their harvests, and are least able to adapt to climate change. By exacerbating existing water stresses, climate change impacts many other areas of human development such as health and even industry."
It goes on: "Already, there are an estimated 25 million environmental refugees - more than half the number of political refugees. Experts such as the ecologist Norman Myers suggest this figure could soar to 200 million in less than 50 years. Unseen and uncounted, millions are already on the move in search of greater water security. In some countries, the exodus began years ago."
In the report's foreword, Sir John Houghton, former chairman of the Scientific Assessment Working Group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says politicians' strong words on climate change must now be matched by sufficient investment and strong action to cut global emissions, and help for the poorest nations adapt to climate change on their doorstep. A key to this will be helping poorer nations manage existing water supplies more efficiently.
"If your house is on fire, do you urgently try to save it, or throw your hands up in despair and walk away?" Sir John saysd. "Well, the house is on fire and it requires much more determined efforts to bring it under control and put it out. The UN climate change conference in Nairobi is an opportunity for failings to be addressed. Time is running out on us and world governments need to act much more responsibly, effectively and quickly."
The devastating impact
The report cites examples of where water problems are already causing a mass exodus or movement of people. They include:
* Poor crop yields are forcing more and more Mexicans to risk death by illegally fleeing to the US.
* One in five Brazilians born in the arid north-east of the country are moving to avoid drought.
* The spread of the Gobi desert, at a rate of 4,000 square miles a year, is forcing the populations of three provinces in China to abandon their homes.
* In Nigeria, 1,350 sq miles of land is turning to desert each year. Farmers and herdsmen are being forced to move to the cities.
* The population of Tuvalu, a group of eight Pacific islands north-east of Australia, is already being evacuated; nearly 3,000 Tuvalans have left so far.
Mass movements of people across the world are likely to be one of the most dramatic effects of climate change in the coming century, a study suggests.
The report, from the aid agency Tearfund, raises the spectre of hundreds of millions of environmental refugees and says the main reason will be the effects of climate - from droughts and water shortages, from flooding and storm surges and from sea-level rise.
The study, "Feeling the Heat", says there are already an estimated 25 million environmental refugees, and this figure is likely to soar as rain patterns continue to change, floods and storms become more frequent and rising tides start to inundate low-lying countries such as Bangladesh or some of the Pacific islands.
Tearfund says that without urgent action, world governments will lose the fight to tackle the world water crisis and the growing threat of climate-change refugees in catastrophic numbers.
The report calls for governments at the UN Climate Change conference, beginning in Nairobi in a fortnight, to move towards a global framework for cutting climate-changing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that goes beyond the existing climate treaty, the Kyoto protocol, and to commit billions more to help poor countries adapt to the coming changes.
"There will be millions more thirsty, hungry and ill poor people living in high-risk areas of the world by the end of the century," the report says. "It makes sense politically, economically and morally, for governments to act with urgency now."
Andy Atkins, advocacy director of Tearfund, said one of the most devastating impacts of climate change was on water supply. "In some parts of the world, floods, storms and poor rainfall are beginning to have catastrophic effects, threatening the lives and livelihoods of millions of people," he said.
This process will be steadily exacerbated, the report says, by the differing yet equally serious changes predicted to be part of a warming world. While some parts of the globe may experience much less rainfall and thus drought, others regions will have much more intense rain likely to bring about flooding. Sea-level rise , which a recent report suggested could be up to 50cm by 2050, would at that rate breach 100,000 kms (62,000 miles) of coastline around the world.
The report says: "As floods, drought and storms increase climate change will have a potentially catastrophic impact on water supply, threatening the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. Poor people - like the 80 per cent of Malawi's population who farm small plots - are reliant on rain for their harvests, and are least able to adapt to climate change. By exacerbating existing water stresses, climate change impacts many other areas of human development such as health and even industry."
It goes on: "Already, there are an estimated 25 million environmental refugees - more than half the number of political refugees. Experts such as the ecologist Norman Myers suggest this figure could soar to 200 million in less than 50 years. Unseen and uncounted, millions are already on the move in search of greater water security. In some countries, the exodus began years ago."
In the report's foreword, Sir John Houghton, former chairman of the Scientific Assessment Working Group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says politicians' strong words on climate change must now be matched by sufficient investment and strong action to cut global emissions, and help for the poorest nations adapt to climate change on their doorstep. A key to this will be helping poorer nations manage existing water supplies more efficiently.
"If your house is on fire, do you urgently try to save it, or throw your hands up in despair and walk away?" Sir John saysd. "Well, the house is on fire and it requires much more determined efforts to bring it under control and put it out. The UN climate change conference in Nairobi is an opportunity for failings to be addressed. Time is running out on us and world governments need to act much more responsibly, effectively and quickly."
The devastating impact
The report cites examples of where water problems are already causing a mass exodus or movement of people. They include:
* Poor crop yields are forcing more and more Mexicans to risk death by illegally fleeing to the US.
* One in five Brazilians born in the arid north-east of the country are moving to avoid drought.
* The spread of the Gobi desert, at a rate of 4,000 square miles a year, is forcing the populations of three provinces in China to abandon their homes.
* In Nigeria, 1,350 sq miles of land is turning to desert each year. Farmers and herdsmen are being forced to move to the cities.
* The population of Tuvalu, a group of eight Pacific islands north-east of Australia, is already being evacuated; nearly 3,000 Tuvalans have left so far.
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JoPost edited by: jodd, at: 2006/10/20 16:37
Diseases and refugee influxes set to increase
INTERVIEW-Refugees, disease big risk from global warming -U.N.