Monday, October 31, 2011

A New Way to Display Warming Projections

Here's an interesting new way to show future warming: as the year when specific temperature thresholds are projected to be reached:

This is from the paper "Projections of when temperature change will exceed 2 °C above pre-industrial levels," Manoj Joshi et al, Nature Climate Change (Oct 16, 2011) p. 1-6 (Sub. req.)

Here's another chart from the same paper:


Notice how much faster the warming is projected to hit central Africa -- a region that can hardly afford it. And that warming of 2°C is projected to hit the US and Australia just about last. That, coupled with the fact that they're two of the countries wealthy enough to best adapt to the changes, surely won't help them overcome their reluctance to tackle the issue.

1 comment:

crf said...

Looks like it hits a fair chunk of China though.