Tuesday, May 11, 2010

By 2300 we may be 'unable to adapt or survive'

Earth may be too hot for humans by 2300: study

AFP: Climate change could make much of the world too hot for human habitation within just three centuries...

Scientists from Australia's University of New South Wales and Purdue University in the United States found that rising temperatures in some places could mean humans would be unable to adapt or survive.

'It would begin to occur with global-mean warming of about seven degrees Celsius (13 Fahrenheit), calling the habitability of some regions into question,' the researchers said in a paper. 'With 11-12 degrees Celsius warming, such regions would spread to encompass the majority of the human population as currently distributed.'...

Researcher Professor Steven Sherwood said there was no chance of the earth heating up to seven degrees this century, but there was a serious risk that the continued burning of fossil fuels could create the problem by 2300... 'There's not much we can do about climate change over the next two decades but there's still a lot we can do about the longer term changes.'...

'Under realistic scenarios out to 2300, we may be faced with temperature increases of 12 degrees (Celsius) or even more,' Professor Tony McMichael said. 'If this happens, our current worries about sea level rise, occasional heatwaves and bushfires, biodiversity loss and agricultural difficulties will pale into insignificance beside a major threat -- as much as half the currently inhabited globe may simply become too hot for people to live there.'