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In 300 yrs, Earth will be too hot for humans |
SYDNEY: Climate change could make much
of the world too hot for human habitation within just three centuries, research
released on Tuesday showed.
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
7°C, calling the habitability of some regions into question," the
researchers said in a paper.
"With 11-12°C warming, such
regions would spread to encompass the majority of the human population as
currently distributed," they said.
Researcher 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 something like a 50/50 chance of that over the
long term," he said.
The study — which examined climate change
over a longer period than most other research — looked at the "heat
stress" produced by combining the impact of rising temperatures and increased
humidity.
Sherwood said climate change research had been "short-sighted"
not to probe the long-term consequences of the impact of greenhouse gases blamed
for global warming.
"It needs to be looked at," he said. "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."
In a commentary on
the paper, published in the US-based Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, Australian National University academics said climate change would not
stop in 2100.
"And under realistic scenarios out to 2300, we may be
faced with temperature increases of 12°C or even more," Tony McMichael
said.
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