By 2500 Earth could be alien to humans
Climate projections should not stop at year 2100

Date:
October 14, 2021
Source:
McGill University
Summary:
To fully grasp and plan for climate impacts under any scenario,
researchers and policymakers must look well beyond the 2100
benchmark.

Unless CO2 emissions drop significantly, global warming by 2500 will
make the Amazon barren, the American Midwest tropical, and India
too hot to live in, according to a team of international scientists.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
To fully grasp and plan for climate impacts under any scenario,
researchers and policymakers must look well beyond the 2100
benchmark. Unless CO2 emissions drop significantly, global warming by
2500 will make the Amazon barren, the American Midwest tropical, and
India too hot to live in, according to a team of international scientists.


==========================================================================
"We need to envision the Earth our children and grandchildren may face,
and what we can do now to make it just and liveable for them," says
Christopher Lyon, a Postdoctoral Researcher under the supervision of
Professor Elena Bennett at McGill University. "If we fail to meet the
Paris Agreement goals, and emissions keep rising, many places in the
world will dramatically change." The scientists ran global climate model projections based on time dependent projections of atmospheric greenhouse
gas concentrations for low, medium, and high mitigation scenarios up
to the year 2500. Their findings, published in Global Change Biology,
reveal an Earth that is alien to humans.

Vegetation moves to the poles Under low and medium mitigation scenarios
-- which do not meet the Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming
to well below 2 degrees Celsius - - vegetation and the best crop-growing
areas may move towards the poles. The area suitable for some crops would
also be reduced. Places with long histories of cultural and ecosystem
richness, like the Amazon Basin, may become barren.

Tropical regions uninhabitable They also found that heat stress may
reach fatal levels for humans in tropical regions that are highly
populated. Even under high-mitigation scenarios, the team found that
the sea level keeps rising due to expanding and mixing water in warming
oceans.

"These projections point to the potential magnitude of climate upheaval
on longer time scales and fall within the range of assessments made by
others," says Lyon.

Looking beyond 2100 Although many reports based on scientific research
talk about the long-term impacts of climate change -- such as rising
levels of greenhouse gases, temperatures, and sea levels -- most of them
don't look beyond the 2100 horizon. To fully grasp and plan for climate
impacts under any scenario, researchers and policymakers must look well
beyond the 2100 benchmark, says the team.

"The Paris Agreement, the United Nations, and the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change's scientific assessment reports, all show us what we
need to do before 2100 to meet our goals, and what could happen if we
don't," says Lyon.

"But this benchmark, which has been used for over 30 years, is
short-sighted because people born now will only be in their 70s by 2100." Climate projections and the policies that depend on them, shouldn't stop
at 2100 because they cannot fully grasp the potential long-term scope
of climate impacts, the scientists conclude.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by McGill_University. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Christopher Lyon, Erin E. Saupe, Christopher J. Smith, Daniel
J. Hill,
Andrew P. Beckerman, Lindsay C. Stringer, Robert Marchant, James
McKay, Ariane Burke, Paul O'Higgins, Alexander M. Dunhill, Bethany
J. Allen, Julien Riel‐Salvatore, Tracy Aze. Climate change
research and action must look beyond 2100. Global Change Biology,
2021; DOI: 10.1111/ gcb.15871 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211014131214.htm

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