Extreme heat waves and global foci

Climatologists warn of the consequences of global warming

08/15/2013

Temperatures will increase dramatically in some regions of the world in the coming decades as a result of climate change, threatening extreme heat waves and seriously affecting people's livelihoods, reports an international research team led by Franziska Piontek from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Even with modest estimates, one in ten people today live in a place that will change massively in the future due to global warming.

In the course of climate change, numerous are being created worldwide „Focal points of the consequences of unchecked global warming“, in which massive crop failures, a dwindling availability of water and drastic impairment of ecosystems but also of human health are to be expected, reports the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, citing an online in the journal „Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)“ appearing study. Even the coldest summer months could be hotter at the end of the century than today's rarely reached peak temperatures.

With the aid of various simulation models, Franziska Piontek's international research team has analyzed the consequences of climate change and, according to their own statements, has arrived at more reliable statements or new insights by intersecting the different models. The investigation is part of „Intersectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP)“, its results from the renowned journal „PNAS“ be published in a special edition. For the first time be with the current study „cross-sectoral focal points“ been, „based on a comprehensive set of computer simulations of both climate change and its consequences“, reports the PIK. By using several different models of climate change, both the robustness and the range of results have increased. „We get a wider range of statements, for example, on future crop yields, taking into account the assumptions contained in the various models“, explained co-author Alex C. Ruane of the NASA Goddard Institute. „Regions for which the different models show highly consistent results are more likely to be focal points than regions determined using only one model and all the assumptions it contains“, the expert continues.

Experts | „from around the world worked together under the ISI-MIP umbrella to identify conclusive data“ and „to illuminate the risks to which humanity is moving“, write the scientists. This is an unprecedented joint effort of climate researchers worldwide. With the help of the new simulation models, a new foundation for future analyzes of the consequences of global warming should be created. „If the climate impacts overlap in several sectors, then interactions can occur here - which may then put a lot of pressure on the livelihoods of people in the affected regions“, explained Franziska Piontek. Therefore, in the various simulations it was examined which regions, like several sectors, could expect painful effects of climate change. Here it turned out that „this is the case both in developing and industrialized countries“, so Piontek.

Particularly drastic effects of climate change are currently expected to be in the Amazon region, the Mediterranean region and East Africa. But in other parts of the world, too, the effects of global warming will be felt in the course of the next century. In addition, the study follows a conservative approach when considering the statements of the various simulations. If the worst-case scenario were used here, could „Almost the entire human-inhabited surface of the earth is affected by changes in several sectors“, reports the PIK. Co-author Qiuhong Tang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences stressed: „What is extreme today could be tomorrow's new normal.“ What changes are considered by the scientists as extreme impairments, the researchers explained using the example of the availability of water. Here, scientists have looked at availability over the past thirty years and as a limit to extreme impairment „The availability of water was taken, which was only undershot in the three driest years.“ In the foci of global warming, according to the researchers, such low water availability could become the norm in the future. (Fp)

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Picture: Verena Berk