Climate Change: Warmest ever summers across the globe on cards
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ISLAMABAD: (APP) In less than five decades, summers across most of the globe could be hotter than any summer experienced by people to date, researchers have estimated.
If climate change continues on its current trajectory, the probability that summers between 2061 and 2080 will be warmer than the hottest on record stands at 80 per cent across the world's land areas, excluding Antarctica, which was not studied, the researchers said.
"Extremely hot summers always pose a challenge to society," said lead author of the study Flavio Lehner, scientist at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). "They can increase the risk for health issues, and can also damage crops and deepen droughts. Such summers are a true test of our adaptability to rising temperatures," Lehner noted.
In some regions, the likelihood of summers being warmer than any in the historical record remained less than 50 percent, but in those places -- including Alaska, the central US, Scandinavia, Siberia and continental Australia -- summer temperatures naturally vary greatly, making it more difficult to detect effects of climate change, the Science Daily reported.
Reducing emissions would lower the global probability of future summers that are hotter than any in the past, but would not result in uniformly spread benefits.
In some regions, including the US East Coast and large parts of the tropics, the probability would remain above 90 percent, even if emissions were reduced, the findings showed. But reduced emissions would result in a sizable boon for other regions of the world.
