MELBOURE, 26 JULY 2017 (RNZI)—A climate expert said a new research will allow for better planning for small island states and other countries concerned about the impacts of global warming.
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The Australian-led study in the Nature Climate Change Journal looked at the possibility of just 1.5 degree celcius warming and found that the extreme frequency of weather events would still increase, even if this warming limit was achieved.
Under the Paris Climate Agreement, the international community is aiming for a 2 degrees limit.
The University of Tasmania’s Peter Strutton said it seems unlikely that current targets will be met resulting in much more extreme weather, causing large-scale flooding and landslides as well as bad droughts and higher tides.
El Niños events have been happening about ten times each century, but Professor Strutton said this study seems to indicate the figure will double to occur twenty times per century.
“In some ways the work is telling us some of what we already knew but putting some numbers on it so that can help us to plan for the future and know how many El Niños events we will experience over the next couple of centuries,” he said….PACNEWS [/restrict]