April 30, 2007
By the end of this century, Earth could be hotter by 6 degrees centigrade than it is today, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Just how bad would that be? Mark Lynas sifted through thousands of scientific papers for some answers, by degrees.
summary of the article found here
- 1° warmer: new dust bowls in the USA, a Greener Sahara (?), Alpine melt-off in Europe
- 2° warmer: plankton wiped out; increased old-age die-offs in Europe's heatwaves (remember 2003 with 30.000 surplus deaths?); Greenland icecap meltoff resulting in global sealevels rise by 7 (!) meters; Alpine meltoffs in South & North America resulting in huge water shortages and ultimately: mass deaths
- 3° warmer: tipping point where we would no longer be able to control climate warming: possible Amazon forest burndown in massive firestorm which would tip the world right away into the 4,5° warmer scenario. Sub-tropic population will migrate to mid-latitudes due to extreme wheather events that threathen foodsupply. Sub-Sahara Africa and Australia become inhabitable.
- 4° warmer: worldwide permafrost meltdown unlocking massive carbon storages to be released in the atmosphere; no more North Pole Ice; Antartica partial melt-off will result in another +5 meters increase in worldwide sea-levels. Great Trek North in Europe due to 45+° temperatures in the Southern parts
- 5° warmer: Ocean Blurp and Massive Tsunamis: methane (a more powerfull greenhouse gas) is no longer trapped in the oceans and is released into the atmosphere.
- 6° warmer: ref to the end-Permian wipeout of 251 million years ago. By the end of this calamity, up to 95% of species were extinct. The end-Permian wipeout is the nearest this planet has ever come to becoming just another lifeless rock drifting through space. major oceanic methane eruptions could release energy equivalent to 10,000 times the world’s stockpile of nuclear weapons.
