Green Media E-Newsletter is brought to you by CMS ENVIS Centre on Media & Environment

Wednesday, January 03, 2018
World to become drier with global warming of 2 degrees Celsius: Study
Correspondent : PTI
Over a quarter of the world’s land could become significantly drier even if global warming is limited to the target of two degree Celsius, according to scientists including one of Indian origin. The change would cause an increased threat of drought and wildfires.

However, limiting global warming to under 1.5 degree Celsius would dramatically reduce the fraction of the Earth’s surface that undergoes such changes. Researchers from University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK and Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in China studied projections from 27 global climate models.

They identified the areas of the world where aridity will substantially change when compared to the year-to-year variations they experience now, as global warming reaches 1.5 or two degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Aridity is a measure of the dryness of the land surface, obtained from combining precipitation and evaporation.

“Our research predicts that aridification would emerge over about 20-30 per cent of the world’s land surface by the time the global mean temperature change reaches two degrees Celsius,” said Manoj Joshi from UEA. “But two thirds of the affected regions could avoid significant aridification if warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius,” said Joshi, one of the authors of the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Drought severity has been increasing across the Mediterranean, southern Africa, and the eastern coast of Australia over the course of the 20th Century, while semi-arid

areas of Mexico, Brazil, southern Africa and Australia have encountered desertification for some time as the world has warmed.

“Aridification is a serious threat because it can critically impact areas such as agriculture, water quality, and biodiversity. It can also lead to more droughts and

wildfires – similar to those seen raging across California,” said Chang-Eui Park from SusTech.

“Another way of thinking of the emergence of aridification is a shift to continuous moderate drought conditions, on top of which future year-to-year variability can cause more severe drought,” said Park. “For instance, in such a scenario 15 per cent of semi-arid regions would actually experience conditions similar to ‘arid’ climates today,” he said.

“The world has already warmed by one degree Celsius. But by reducing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere in order to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius or two degrees Celsius could reduce the likelihood of significant aridification emerging in many parts of the world,” Joshi said.

“The areas of the world which would most benefit from keeping warming below 1.5 degree Celsius are parts of South East Asia, Southern Europe, Southern Africa, Central America and Southern Australia – where more than 20 per cent of the world’s population live today,” said Tim Osborn from UEA.

 
SOURCE : http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/science/world-to-become-drier-with-global-warming-of-2-degrees-celsius-study-5008704/
Back to pevious page

Advertise with Green Media

Be a part of this successful campaign and advertise your events, seminars, conferences, festivals or services, job requirements etc. "GREEN MEDIA" - unique E-newsletter DAILY reaches to more than 3000 environmentalists, wildlife experts, activists, filmmakers and media professionals. For Advertisement contact: cmsenvis@cmsindia.org

Print Media Trends and Analysis: CoP 11/MoP 6



Assessment of Using Social Media to Raise environmental Awareness

Trends in the coverage of environment by news channels



 



The Hindu | Times of India | The Pioneer | The Statesman | The Tribune | Hindustan Time | Sahara Times | Business Lines | Business Standard |

  Economic Times| Financial Express | The Asian Age | Indian Express | The Telegraph | Deccan Herald | The Assam Tribune | The Sentinel  

 

 

 

 

Supported by: ENVIS Secretariat,Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change, GOI.

    

Copyright © 2014 Centre for Media Studies. For Limited Circulation

 

 
Since India has no anti-spamming law, we follow the US directive passed in Bill.1618 Title III by the 105th US Congress, which states that mail cannot be considered spam if it contains contact information, which this mail does. If you want to be removed from the mailing list click on UNSUBSCRIBE