Earth Warming Up Faster Than Predicted

18 May 2009

Climate change is already endangering wildlife and the risks are now starting to increase for humans.

In an international meeting in Copenhagen, scientists have revealed that the worst case scenarios put forward by the United Nations are being realised. A statement which outlined their six key messages to political leaders, said that there is an ever increasing risk of abrupt or possibly irreversible climate shifts. Moderate temperatures rises will affect millions of people, particularly in the developing world, they warn. But most tools needed to cut global carbon dioxide emissions already exist.

The meeting was well attended with more than 2,500 researchers and economists. The meeting itself was designed specifically to update the world on the state of climate research ahead of the key political negotiations set later in December this year. New data was presented in Copenhagen on sea level rise, which indicated that the best estimates of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made two years ago were woefully out of date. Scientists were told that waters could rise by over a meter across the world with a direct affect on hundreds, upon, millions of people.

New information was also revealed on how the Amazon rain forest would cope with the global rising temperatures. A UK Meteorological Office study concluded there would be approximately  a 75% loss of tree cover if the world warmed by just three degrees over century.