For fifty million years, the earth’s temperature cooled. But for two centuries, human activity has overturned this trend. In 2030, the climate will resemble that of thirty million years ago.
Global warming would rather be a climatic upheaval. In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers show that human activity has reversed in just two centuries a trend towards global cooling that had lasted for fifty million years. If the earth continues to warm in this way, in 2030 the climate will be the same as that of the Pliocene epoch, which took place three million years ago.
Species will disappear
The changes ahead are the fastest the earth has ever seen. What confirms the expert in climatology and paleoecology Jack Williams: “We are heading towards very dramatic changes over an extremely short period”. This could endanger certain species of fauna or flora.
“I’ve been working on this for 20 or 25 years, we went from the idea that the climate was probably going to change, to the first effects we saw until today, where we see that it is causing harm. People are dying , individual ownership is questioned, we see serious fires and stronger storms, all of this can be attributed to climate change”, notes the researcher.
Rediscover the climate of 50 million years ago
During the Pliocene, average temperatures were between 1.8 and 3.6 degrees higher than in our time. The climate was very arid at the time. If the emissions of greenhouse gases do not decrease, the climate of 2150 could approach that of an even older era: the Eocene, in which the earth was 50 million years ago. The dinosaurs had just died out and the temperatures were 13 degrees higher on average than those we know today. At that time, the Arctic was covered with great green forests.
Results published in full COP24
For Jack Williams, it is not enough to be alarmist, on the contrary. The researcher stresses that these discoveries will make it possible to know what the climate could concretely look like in the decades to come, and to understand how best to adapt to these changes. States are meeting right now in Katowice, Poland for COP 24 for climate negotiations. The various countries must guarantee the application of the Paris agreement of 2015. The latter is the first universal agreement on the climate and aims to contain global warming. The international conference is due to end on Friday 14 December.
The whole world in one place, united in action for the #climate. See how the pavilions of countries participating in #COP24 look! #ChangingTogether pic.twitter.com/6f7ekcSzVS
— COP24 (@COP24) December 7, 2018
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