Extreme heat: in 50 years, billions of people will be in unsuitable climate

If global warming remains unchecked, the heatwaves that will hit some parts of the world this century will create "almost unusable" living conditions for 3 billion people, a recent study says. This is reported USA Today.

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The authors of the study predict that by 2070, a significant portion of the world's population is likely to live in climates that are "warmer than those considered suitable for human life to thrive."

The researchers have warned that if greenhouse gas emissions are not curtailed, average annual temperatures will begin to rise outside the climatic "niche" in which humans have lived happily for 6000 years.

This “niche” is equivalent to an average annual temperature of about 52 to 59 Fahrenheit (11-15 Celsius). Researchers have found that people, despite all forms of innovation and migration, have mainly lived in these climatic conditions for several thousand years.

“We show that under a business-as-usual climate change scenario, the geographic location of this temperature niche is projected to change more in the next 50 years than it has in the last 6000 years,” the authors said.

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The burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas releases so-called greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane, into the Earth's atmosphere and oceans. Scientists report that emissions have led to an increase in the temperature on the planet to a level that cannot be explained by natural factors. Temperatures are projected to rise rapidly over the next few decades as a result of greenhouse gas emissions.

The study says that by 2070, without mitigating the effects of climate change or migration, a significant portion of humanity will be exposed to too high average annual temperatures. These extremely hot climatic conditions currently cover only 0,8% of the land surface, mainly in the hottest parts of the Sahara Desert, but by 2070 can spread to 19% of the land area, including large parts of northern Africa, the Middle East, northern South America, South Asia and parts of Australia.

“Wide areas of the planet will begin to warm to levels bordering on survival, and they will no longer cool,” said study co-author Maarten Schaeffer of Wageningen University in the Netherlands. “Not only will this have devastating direct consequences, but it will also reduce society’s ability to cope with future crises, such as new pandemics.” The only thing that can stop this from happening is a rapid reduction in carbon emissions.”

An immediate reduction in greenhouse gas emissions could halve the spread of such hot conditions.

"The good news is that these impacts can be significantly reduced if humanity manages to curb global warming," said study co-author Tim Lenton, a climate scientist at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.

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“Our calculations show that each degree of warming (Celsius) above current levels corresponds to about 1 billion people moving beyond the climate niche,” Lenton explained. “It’s important that we can now express the benefits of limiting greenhouse gas emissions in more than just monetary terms.

The study, prepared by an international team of archaeologists, environmentalists and climatologists, has been published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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