Global Warming Slower Than Predicted but Outlook Critical
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The Earth may warm at a slightly slower rate in coming decades than scientists were predicting six years ago, but the world is still likely to be in for a temperature rise of double that regarded as safe, according to a new scientific study.
The Earth may warm at a slightly slower rate in coming decades than scientists were predicting six years ago, but the world is still likely to be in for a temperature rise of double that regarded as safe, according to a new scientific study.
Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, an international team of climate experts warned that in the long term, temperatures will likely to rise to potentially dangerous levels of more than 2ËšC above pre-industrial levels, unless tough action is taken to limit rising greenhouse gas emissions.
However, examining recent temperatures, the scientists predict that a doubling of carbon dioxide would push temperatures by between 0.9 and 2.0ËšC higher in the short term over the next 50 to 100 years.
While the range is lower than a 2007 United Nations estimate of between 1 and 3ËšC, the report suggests that the temperature rise would still lead to catastrophe across large swaths of the Earth, causing droughts, storms, floods and heat waves, and drastic effects on agricultural productivity leading to secondary effects such as mass migration.
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The United Nations is targeting a global average maximum temperature rise of 2ËšC on pre-industrial levels, for what scientists believe would be manageable climate change. To meet the two-degree goal, countries are negotiating curbs to emissions of Earth-warming greenhouse gases released by fossil fuel burning.
“The most extreme projections are looking less likely than before,” said Alexander Otto at the University of Oxford, lead author of the report.
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Explaining the recent downturn in the rate of global warming, Otto added there was much that climate scientists could not factor into their models but added that the recent warming had been absorbed by the oceans.
This would however change as the seas heat up. Thermal expansion of the oceans is one of the main factors behind current and projected sea level rises.
For years, the slowdown has been a puzzle because emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases have continued to rise, led by strong industrial growth in China.
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