Human activities are changing the climate and ecosystems of our planet in ways that are dangerous and disruptive to humans. The concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continue to increase, with consequences for several centuries and well beyond 2100. Examining the impact of past, present and future carbon emissions only through 2100 is too short a vision. That’s why, Researchers at Mc Gill University of Sainte Anne de Bellevue in Quebec and the University of Oxford in Great Britain who have just published in the journal “Global Change Biology” have extended these future climate scenarios to 2500. And what we can say right now is that some of these extreme scenarios really aren’t folichon. Our planet could be uninhabitable in 500 years.
Even if critical problems in food production or forced migration should arise before the turn of the century, the problem of inhumane regions is expected at the beginning of the 22nd century. Scientists wondered what effects there would be on plants or heat stress on populations after 2100 with different models and different greenhouse gas emissions. Your projections are challenging. If we do nothing, the climate impacts can be irreversible.
What will the climate impacts be after 2100?
Xavier Fettweis, climatologist at the University of Liège, finds the publication interesting: “So far, the reports of the IPCC, the intergovernmental group of experts on climate change, look at the scenarios of staying below a rise of 2 ° C or even 1.5 ° C by 2100, as envisaged by the Paris agreements on Cop 21. All simulations stop because of computation and priority issues around 2100. These scientists went even further. “
(Editor’s note today, with the commitments made by the various governments of the world, we will be on a + 2.7 ° course by the end of the century.)
Three climate scenarios: In the most extreme case, the earth will be inhumane in 500 years
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On the table 3 scenarios: the RCP 2.6 that of the Paris Agreement (in 2015) with + 2 ° C, the RCP 4.5 is the average scenario and finally the RCP 6.0 is the highest, but not the most extreme. The researchers worked on the distribution of vegetation, heat stress and the growth of plants grown around the world today in order to estimate the conditions that our children and grandchildren will be exposed to in the next century. The graph is clear, the temperature anomalies will turn dark red in 2500, where some areas will no longer be habitable.
The first bad news, global warming won’t stop after 2100 and it’s worse for the last two scenarios. In 500 years, the vegetation will have to adapt to these changes. For example, many cultures are shrinking and some will have to migrate to the poles. Rich or fertile areas become deserts.
For a better understanding, scientists have taken a few examples of what will happen in extreme cases.
Amazonia
The first, the Amazon, still covers precious primary forests today, the rise in temperatures will dry out the soil and turn this green lung into a desert. This will further aggravate local global warming, the rise in temperature could then be carried away with all the damage to fauna, flora and biodiversity in general.
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The Indian continent
Another example, also striking. On the Indian continent, precipitation will increase sharply and the temperature will average 40 ° C in the summer months. It will be impossible for farmers to go into the fields without protecting themselves. It will undoubtedly require robotic agriculture in air-conditioned greenhouses. It will be robots that do the job in this scorching heat.
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The American Midwest
Last example, the Midwest in the center of the United States, now a veritable granary, is becoming a land of exotic plants, coffee trees, oil palms due to the humidity and the heat (the grain will rot). , Bananas, the only ones that can still withstand the new climate.
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The next 500 years will radically change our planet, which would become misanthropic
Our climatologist discusses thermal stress: “From 36 ° C it becomes hazardous to health and if we do nothing, certain regions of the world become uninhabitable, where temperatures keep reaching 50 ° C, it becomes hostile to the ‘male’. It gets too hot in summer not necessarily drier so that we can still live normally there. “
And to continue “If we fail to slow global warming. The next 500 years will radically change our planet and become misanthropic. But if we respect the Paris Agreement, the temperature could drop from 2100 onwards. And the disaster scenario study described in it will not take place. An increase of 1.5 ° C is a threshold, climatologists show that if it is exceeded sustainably, it becomes dangerous for humans and nature and we can no longer return to a so-called normal climate. “
For Xavier Fettweis, this study has the advantage of showing what would happen in the worst case, but it is unrealistic: “It’s science fiction, hoping it stays that way. By then, a lot of disasters will have happened and people will realize they need to act. There is no way we can let go of them. Things will be for 500 years until then. It will cost more. ” nothing but to act anyway. “
And finally, “In the meantime, we have to adapt to droughts and other floods. Even if we all stopped our greenhouse gas emissions overnight, it would take 10 years for global temperatures to drop. We’re not ready yet so it will continue in the coming decades. “
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