Further warming will have more frightening consequences such as severe wildfires
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Even with moderate emissions of greenhouse gases, a landscape currently expects to heat the planet to about 3 ° C, there is a 1 -in -10 chance of reaching 7 ° C warming in about 200 years. This is according to a climate model who has discovered what can happen in the next thousand years.
“Three degrees are already very bad, of course,” says Andry Ganopolsky At the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. “Seven is not doubled from 3, 3 from 3, or even three times the worse. It is probably 10 times worse, because many things are non-lectured.”
The model also shows that even if the emissions have stopped tomorrow, there are about 1 -in -10 opportunities that the planet can still be over 3 ° C.
How hot the planet gets, it partially depends on how many co2 and other greenhouse gases we pump into the atmosphere, and partly the climate in greenhouse gases is so sensitive.
The amount of warming in the atmosphere in the atmosphere after doubling is called equilibrium climate sensitivity. It depends on various rapid response effects that occur when there is an increase in temperature, such as an increase in water vapor in the atmosphere and changes in cloud behavior. Studies suggest that the balance climate sensitivity can be from 2 ° C to 5 ° C anywhere, but for a model over 2100 it is considered 3 ° C.
Ganopolski and his team instead have their model twenty to find out what the effect would be if the balance climate sensitivity is different from this expectation.
Their models also include additional and long -term carbon reaction effects such as the release of CO2 and methane from Permafrost and Wetlands. Ganopolski says that the previous models looking ahead of 2100 have not included both the co2 and methane feedback.
Both can have a major effect, they say, as more methane is released and vice versa.
For a balanced balance sensitivity of 3 ° C, the results of the team are similar to other studies, which is leading for warming of about 3 ° C after 2200 for a medium-vigorous landscape. For highly received sensitivity, the model projects warming up to 7 ° C.
While the 23rd century can go a long way, it is not far in terms of human generations, says Ganopolski. “I have grandchildren who are likely to live in the next century.”
Ganopolski says that the balance of equilibrium climate sensitivity is the reason for such uncertainty that aerosol emissions are combating the warming effects of greenhouse gases. For example, lack in shipping emissions has contributed to recent rapid warming.
The effects of aerosol are extremely complex, making it difficult to determine their cooling effect. “Currently, we cannot deny high climate sensitivity,” they say.
“An emission route that we think will get 2 ° C out of 2100, may be much more or less depending on these basic uncertainties,” Andy Wiltshire In the Met Office, the National Weather Service of the UK.
It was already known, but is usually expressed in terms of the possibility of a specific target to meet a specific goal, “says Wiltshire. This paper shows it in a different way. “What do I like about paper, the way information is presented,” they say.
If the balance climate sensitivity is low and future emissions are limited, 3 ° C warming can still be saved, says Ganopolski – but she feels that it is already too late to limit warming below 2 ° C.
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