Global Warming

Climate Change: Habitability of Some Regions into Question

Arguably the single most important scientific issue – and unresolved question – in the global warming debate is climate sensitivity. Will increasing carbon dioxide cause warming that is so small that it can be safely ignored (low climate sensitivity)? Or will it cause a global warming Armageddon (high climate sensitivity)? Climate change could make half [...]

Arguably the single most important scientific issue – and unresolved question – in the global warming debate is climate sensitivity. Will increasing carbon dioxide cause warming that is so small that it can be safely ignored (low climate sensitivity)? Or will it cause a global warming Armageddon (high climate sensitivity)?

Climate change could make half of the world uninhabitable for humans as a rise in temperature makes it too hot to survive in as little as three centuries time, a report has warned.

A study published by researchers from the University of New South Wales, in Australia, and scientists from Purdue University in the US has claimed that global temperatures over the next 300 years could rise by as much as 12 degrees Celsius.

If this happens, our current worries about sea level rise, occasional heat waves and bushfires, biodiversity loss and agricultural difficulties will pale into insignificance beside a major threat – as much as half the currently inhabited globe may simply become too hot for people to live there.

With 11-12 degrees Celsius warming, such regions would spread to encompass the majority of the human population as currently distributed.

“We show that even modest global warming could therefore expose large fractions of the population to unprecedented heat stress – and that with severe warming this would become intolerable,” the study said.

The study — which examined climate change over a longer period than most other research — looked at the “heat stress” produced by combining the impact of rising temperatures and increased humidity.

The world should shift to a low carbon economy not to stop climate change but to preserve ‘human dignity’, according to a report from a self-styled “eclectic” group of academics.

A group of academics recently noted that to tackle climate change, there is a need for a different approach to the usual CO2-focused tactics.