‘3 degrees to year-long droughts in Himalayas’
About 90% of the Himalayan region will experience drought lasting over a year if the world warms by 3 degrees C, according to anew research.
The findings, published in the journal Climatic Change, show 80% of the increased human exposure to heat stress in India can be avoided by adhering to the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C.
Researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the U.K. quantified how risks to human and natural systems increase at a national scale as the level of global warming increases.
A collection of eight studies — focusing on India, Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Ghana — found the risks of drought, flooding, declines in crop yields, and loss of biodiversity and natural capital greatly increase for each additional degree of warming.
It added that in India, pollination was reduced by half at 34 degrees versus reduction by a quarter at 1.5 degrees.
The team also reported large increases in the exposure of agricultural land to drought with 3 degrees of warming: more than 50% of the agricultural land in each of the countries was projected to be exposed to severe droughts longer than a
More efforts are required to reduce global warming since the policies already in place worldwide are likely to result in warming by 3 degrees C
year over a 30year period.
Economic damages associated with sealevel rise were also projected to increase in coastal nations, but more slowly if warming was limited to 1.5 degrees C.
The researchers said more efforts are required to reduce global warming since the policies already in place worldwide are likely to result in warming by 3 degrees C.
One paper explored the risks to plants and vertebrates due to increases in global warming while another developed a new natural ‘capital risk register’ for each of the six countries, including projected changes in risks stemming from future human population changes.
Their results in combination showed that many areas in the six countries are already at high natural capital risk at 1.5 degrees C once the effects of higher human population are accounted for.
“The results presented in this collection confirm the need for the implementation of climate policies aligned to the Paris Agreement limits if widespread and escalating climate change risk is to be avoided,” said Prof. Rachel Warren of the UEA and lead author of the study.
“They provide additional confirmation of the rapid escalation of climate change risks with global warming found in the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change 2022 report, which identifies how the risk of severe consequences increases with every additional increment of global warming,” Prof. Warren said.
Although these studies focus on the risks to six countries only, other nations are projected to experience similar issues, the researchers added.