quarta-feira, 20 de junho de 2007

I. The Mediterranean: end of a temperate climate

«Ever more glow furnace days on the Mediterranean

Rome 43°C, Athens 45°C – so could soon summer everyday life look like in the Mediterranean regions: according to a new study, a climatic projection, the number of lethal hot days will strongly increase there – if the greenhouse gas output should rise further. A new study by several scientists confirms the fear that it might shortly become unpleasant in southern Europe: towards end of this century, extreme heat days could occur two to five times as frequently per season as on average in the past decades, the researchers write in the US specialized magazine "Geophysical Research Letters":

"Heat stress intensification in the Mediterranean climate change hotspot (Abstract)

(Noah S. Diffenbaugh, Jeremy S. Pal, Filippo Giorgi, and Xuejie Gao
West Lafayette, Indiana, USA and Trieste, Italy)

We find that elevated greenhouse gas concentrations dramatically increase heat stress risk in the Mediterranean region, with the occurrence of hot extremes increasing by 200 to 500% throughout the region.
This heat stress intensification is due to preferential warming of the hot tail of the daily temperature distribution, with 95.th percentile maximum and minimum temperature magnitude increasing more than 75.th percentile magnitude.
This preferential warming of the hot tail is dictated in large part by a surface moisture feedback, with areas of greatest warm-season drying showing the greatest increases in hot temperature extremes.
Fine-scale topographic and humidity effects help to further dictate the spatial variability of the heat stress response, with increases in dangerous Heat Index (cf. graphic) magnified in coastal areas.
Further, emissions deceleration substantially mitigates heat stress intensification throughout the Mediterranean region, implying that emissions reductions could reduce the risk of increased heat stress in the coming decades."
(Published June 15.th 2007)

"Rare events like the heat wave in 2003 will become the standard", says Noah Diffenbaugh, earth and atmosphere researcher at the Purdue University in West Lafayette (Indiana) and main author of the study. "The extreme events of the future will be without example in their consequences." What today are the hottest summer days, by the end of the 21.st century will become the coolest ones, according to simulations.

Summer days with "dangerous heat stress"

For their view into the future the researchers used the supercomputer of the national Chinese climatic centre in Beijing and fed it with two different, internationally common global scenarios: a pessimistic and a rather optimistic. In one case the output of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases rises exponentially, their content in the atmosphere doubles compared to today (A2 scenario); in the other one the world-wide emissions increase less strongly due to larger efforts of climatic protection, but even so by approximately 50% (B2 scenario).

These data were put into a regional climatic computer model. In the end it supplied a picture of the temperature extremes that can be expected on the Mediterranean up to the year 2099, and with a rather high spatial resolution of 20 × 20 km. Finally, Diffenbaugh and his colleagues determined the number of summer days with "dangerous heat stress" for groups of risk like older people and infants, derived from formulas used by weather forecast services. On the Mediterranean those are generally days with temperatures beyond 40.5ºC.

The results should bring sweat pearls to some people's foreheads already: The daily maximum temperature on the hottest days rises accordingly for instance in Paris from 27º to 35ºC, if greenhouse gas emissions will follow the A2 path without brakes. Also summer nights on the Seine would then be by the end of the century around full 4ºC warmer than today. In Rome and Tel Aviv heat periods could become the standard, when the thermometer would show only just 43ºC and more during the day. In Athens it might be even 45ºC and in Algiers 46ºC – with nocturnal maximum values of 28ºC and 29ºC. In the more optimistic B2 scenario temperatures would lie around 1.2ºC to 2ºC lower.»





… What are we all still waiting for?
For us to open our outside doors and dive into a sand dune?
For us to drink water from the Atlantic?
For us to die instantly from a heat stroke?
Tell me all about political summits and more… I just love being fooled!

RIC - Translation and editing

16 comentários:

Anónimo disse...

Estamos a passar por uma fase muito critica e decisiva no que toca ao nosso clima.
Se se tomarem medidas certas, ainda podemos manter o planeta como está, utopico.
Penso que serão tomadas algumas medidas que vão atrasar o aquecimento global mas infelizmente só vão atrasar, porque a "gula" de determinados paises que são governados por individuos que só pensam em dinheiro e não no amanhã e nos vindouros, vão acabar por não permitir a estagnação desta miseravel evolução.
Abraço

Jack disse...

I guess it was a hot one for everybody!?

If I were the owner of my house I would make it solar powered. If I had a field, I'd make wind power.

I'd get a well to colect rain water to water the plants. Trees would be planted every where.

But that's just me!?

RIC disse...

Olá Bernardo!
Perfeita síntese! E os políticos, de braço dado (e não só...) com os galifões que ao final de cada dia só ficam contentes por estarem ainda mais ricos, continuam a confundir deliberadamente as populações com conversas da treta!
Uma das confusões actualmente muito perniciosa é a que é feita entre «desertificação» e «despovoamento». Mas quem é que se preocupa com «pormenores», não é?...
Abraço :-)

RIC disse...

Hello dear Joel!
I hope you're quite fine, dear friend!
It is a shame, is it not? Some time ago, I had read a text on changes in the Iberian peninsula due to climate degradation: by the end of the century, most of its area will be ready to be «conquered» by the Sahara... Seemingly, nobody cares, nobody gives a damn...
As to Canada, it's such a vast country for not so many inhabitants that I think you can still breath at ease... For the time being...
Hugs! :-)

Jack disse...

We can, but the climate change affects us all. We barely had a winter, and already temperatures are higher than normal.

When you're used to the cold, as soon as it's a bit warmer, you feel it.

I guess in the end, we'll all have to just ajust.

The movie Mad Max comes to mind.
Doesn't it?

Anónimo disse...

Já estou com calores!... ;)

RIC disse...

... Indeed it does, Joel! This winter around here hardly can be called «winter»: only around Christmas and New Year's Eve was really winter-like weather... Then spring was no spring at all. Now, on the edge of summer, weather seems as if we were still in March... But it's more than certain: just as it happened in previous years, temperatures will rise to near 40ºC in just a few days, as if we were in the Sahara...
I strongly believe we're all in big trouble,,, And «Mad Max» does ring a bell!
:-)

Anónimo disse...

Caro Ric,
infelizmente é.
Ab.

RIC disse...

Olá João M.!
Espera só mais um tempinho que logo ficas a saber o que é a vida de um berbere...
Depois, comprem e vendam muitos bancos e façam muitas OPA e m*rdas quejandas que há-de servir de muito!...
Se fossem todos f*der-se!
(Pois é, hoje estou virado do avesso! Acho que também posso, só de vez em quando...)
Abraço! :-)

Anónimo disse...

Por acaso até sei como é a vida de berbere. E digo-te, desde já, que há berberes que sim. Que pois.

A verdade é que esta cegueira (aparente?!) esgota-me de raiva várias vezes por mês. Não. Não tenho a mania que sou ecológico e não sou um fundamentalista (embora simpatize muito com o terrorismo da Greenpeace).

Eu cá acho que não há nada como soltar a franga fodida e dar meia dúzia de berros. Desopila.
Acho que fazes muito bem virar-te do avesso. Além de arejares, mostras o lado B a quem merece! ;)

Anónimo disse...

ecológico=ecologista

RIC disse...

... Fizeste-me rir a bom rir no meio da fúria com que estava! Muito obrigado! Rsrsrs!
Com que então que sim, que pois... Ah pois, não duvido um só átimo... Rsrsrs! Nunca fui feliz nas areias escaldantes, mas acredito piamente que se possa ser... E muito!
E se o que a Greenpeace faz é terrorismo, então inclui-me já nessa categoria! Eu também sou! E creio que não é necessário a minha «face oculta» para se perceber... Não sou radical-fundamentalista, mas há momentos e circunstâncias em que bem me apetece...
Abraço! :-)
Ah, é verdade, tens razão: soltar a franga f*dida desopila com'ó caraças...

Anónimo disse...

Eu tenho realmente alguma pena de quem nasça agora; com as barbaridades que se continuam a fazer, a vida, pese embora todo o progresso que possa vir aí, será difícil, e as catástrofes naturais vão ser cada vez maiores e o descontrolo do clima, total. Eu já cá não estarei para ver, mas parece que vai doer...

RIC disse...

Olá João C.!
Exactamente o que eu ia pensando à medida que ia trabalhando os dados do artigo e o resumo do estudo.
Há uns bons anos já, num daqueles momentos (então raros) de intensa canícula, a derreter e a beber água sem parar, pus-me a escrever um textinho em que imaginava que na «Outra Banda» começava o Sahara... Qual não é o meu espanto quando um dia destes vi uma fotomontagem em que se vê a ponte sobre o Tejo e, do outro lado, apenas dunas...
Espero e desjo que esteja tudo bem contigo!
Abraço! :-)

T-Bird disse...

meanwhile fat frigging Americans drive these big ass resource consumption intensive things larger than poor peoples shanties in the 3rd world and think that the rest of the world somehow owes them this lifestyle...

RIC disse...

Hello dear Will!
Well, I think I understood what you wrote, but... maybe you could stay on the track of standard American English, please, which for me means some effort already anyway.
I believe that climate change is going to be the worst challenge ever for next generations... I don't understand seasons anymore. Summer is supposed to have started today, and around here I feel as if we were in March/April...
The USA must do something about it really soon, or else... But other countries too must join the effort immediately: China and India.
I don't know... I really don't...
Thanks! :-)