Global warming may create novel climates, eliminate others



Using global change forecasts prepared for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, researchers led by Williams used computer models to estimate how climates in various parts of the world would be affected. Their findings are being published in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The IPCC, representing the world's leading climate scientists, reported in February that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observation of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level."


This was surprising, Williams said in a telephone interview, since the tropics tend to have little variation in weather.





That doesn't mean these regions would have no climate at all - rather their climate would change and the conditions currently in these areas would not occur elsewhere on Earth.


If some regions develop new climates that don't now exist, that might provide an opportunity for species that live there, Williams said. "But we can't make a prediction because it's outside our current experience and outside the experience of these species."

Alan Robock, a professor of environmental sciences at Rutgers University welcomed the report, calling it the first he has seen "that not only looks at species extinctions, but also looks at regions where novel climates will appear."

"While the idea of novel climates may seem like a positive consequence of humans using the atmosphere as a sewer and causing rapid, unprecedented climate change, I would argue that mitigation of our pollution should be an even stronger reaction to these results," said Robock, who was not part of the research team.

"The potential consequences and how these new regimes will be populated are poorly known, and the potential for new threats to humans through disease vectors could be a real danger," he said.

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