UN to release new report detailing how climate change impacts land, food

quinta-feira, agosto 08, 2019

Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesAn iceberg floats in Disko Bay behind houses during unseasonably warm weather, July 30, 2019, in Ilulissat, Greenland.

The United Nations body focused on climate change is set to release a new report about the relationship between climate change and land on Thursday, including how warming temperatures impact agriculture and food security around the world.

The report is expected to summarize research on issues, such as the impact of climate change on land around the world, as well as look at how some changes to our relationship with land could help limit future warming. The report, set for release this week, is one in a series produced by the UN panel to inform international discussions on climate change, including at a UN climate summit in New York next month.

Zeke Hausfather, an analyst will the non-profit research group Berkeley Earth, said it's important to look at the impact of climate change on land separately from global averages since that's where people will be impacted the most.

"The whole world has warmed by about 1.1 degrees Celsius, 2 degrees Fahrenheit, from the pre-industrial period but if you look at the land areas they warm about 50 percent faster," he told ABC, saying that the difference is partly because oceans have the capacity to absorb more heat.

Berkeley Earth's analysis of land-surface temperatures over the last 250 years found that those temperatures have increased about 1.5 degrees Celsius in the same time period, with about 0.9 degrees of that warming occurring in the last 50 years.

He said the warming in the Arctic or Alaska are better indicators of the impact of warmer temperatures on land, where he said some areas have seen average increases as high as 3 or 4 degrees Celsius. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced this week the temperatures in Alaska this July were the highest on record, almost 5.5 degrees hotter than the average summer month.

Hausfather said that while most of the focus in the U.S. tends to be on domestic impacts of climate change, it's the countries that contribute less greenhouse gases that are the most impacted by the warming climate through drought, increased heat stress or flooding from sea-level rise.

"One of the big challenges of climate change is the many ways the people who are least responsible for climate change are the most affected," he said, adding "you can build a sea wall around Manhattan, it's a lot harder to build one in Bangladesh."

Previous reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have raised concerns about the world's progress to meeting the goal set in the Paris Agreement to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius. A report released by the panel of hundreds of scientists last year has often been cited for warning that greenhouse gas emissions need to be drastically reduced as quickly as possible to limit warming from reaching levels where the effects could become "irreversible."

The last five years have been the warmest in recorded history, according to government scientists from NOAA.

The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will be released Thursday afternoon.

Page: ABC News