All IN IT... TOGETHER


by Scot Aitken


floods which swept through Scotland scientists have warned the impact of climate change may be worse than previously thought.


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A global study carried out by researchers from Edinburgh university has discovered land surface temperatures may rise by an average of almost 8C by 2100, if significant action is not taken now.


Such a rise would have a devastating impact on life on Earth. It would place billions of people at risk from extreme temperatures, flooding, regional drought, and food shortages.


The study calculated the likely effect of increasing atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases above pre- industrialisation amounts. It finds that if emissions continue to grow at current rates, with no significant action taken by society, then by 2100 global land temperatures will have increased by 7.9C, compared with 1750.


74 February 2016


“Estimates vary over the impacts of climate change. But what is now clear is that society needs to take firm, speedy action to minimise climate damage.”


: Professor Roy Thompson,


University of Ed- inburgh’s School of GeoSciences


HILE clean up operations continue in the wake of devastating


This finding lies at the very uppermost range of temperature rise as calculated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It also breaches the United Nations’ safe limit of 2C, beyond which the UN says dangerous climate change can be expected.


Research at the University of Edinburgh first created a simple algorithm to determine the key factors shaping climate change and then estimated their likely impact on the world’s land and ocean temperatures. The method is more direct and straightforward than that used by the IPCC, which uses sophisticated, but more opaque, computer models.


The study was based on historical temperatures and emissions data. It accounted for atmospheric pollution effects that have been cooling Earth by reflecting sunlight into space, and for the slow response time of the ocean.


Professor Roy Thompson, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences, who carried out the study, said: “Estimates vary over the impacts of climate change. But what is now clear is that society needs to take firm, speedy action to minimise climate damage.”


At the end of last year world leaders gathered in Paris for two weeks of talks on combating climate change during which it was agreed countries should limit the use of fossil fuels and action taken to try and keep any global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius.


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