Está um tempo maravilhoso …
Dizem os Portugueses … O Clima está verdadeiramente a mudar e as
consequências serão terríveis nos ciclos da pluviosidade e seca ,
reflectindo-se em toda a cadeia de equilíbrios na vida animal , na
agricultura , na deserificação da Peninsula Ibérica …
Muitas colheitas já estào a
falhar na Península e no Sul de França ( a imagem de seca refere-se
ao leito do rio Var em Carros no Sul de França em Setembro de 2016
)
OVOODOCORVO
Europe
faces droughts, floods and storms as climate change accelerates
Europe
and northern hemisphere are warming at faster pace than the global
average and ‘multiple climatic hazards’ are expected, says study
The Var riverbed in
Carros, southern France, September 2016.
Arthur Neslen
Wednesday 25 January
2017 10.14 GMT
Europe’s
Atlantic-facing countries will suffer heavier rainfalls, greater
flood risk, more severe storm damage and an increase in “multiple
climatic hazards”, according to the most comprehensive study of
Europe’s vulnerability to climate change yet.
Temperatures in
mountain ranges such as the Alps and the Pyrenees are predicted to
soar to glacier-melting levels, while the Mediterranean faces a
“drastic” increase in heat extremes, droughts, crop failure and
forest fires.
Europe and the
entire northern hemisphere are warming at a quicker pace than
elsewhere, to the extent that tropical diseases such as West Nile
fever are expected to spread across northern France by mid-century.
Hans-Martin Füssel,
one of the lead authors of the European Environment Agency report,
said that scientific evidence was pointing increasingly to a speeding
up in the pace of climate change.
“We have more data
confirming that sea-level rise is accelerating,” he said. “It is
not a linear trend, largely due to increased disintegration of ice
sheets. There is also new evidence that heavy precipitation has
increased in Europe. That is what is causing the floods. The
[climate] projections are coming true.”
Earlier this month,
Nasa, Noaa and the Met Office confirmed that 2016 had broken the
record for the hottest year ever previously held by 2015, which had
itself broken the record that had been held by 2014.
The new EEA report
finds that land temperatures in Europe in the last decade were 1.5C
warmer than the pre-industrial age, although near-surface
temperatures – measured at a metre above ground level – were only
0.83C-0.89C warmer.
Hans Bruyninckx, the
director of the EEA, which produced the report said that there was
now “not a snowball’s chance in hell” of limiting global
warming to 2C without the full involvement of the US, which has just
elected a climate-sceptic president.
“Empirical
evidence is the basis of the climate debate,” Bruyninckx said.
“There are still people around who say the earth is flat or was
created in seven days but if you don’t accept the logic of
empirical reasoning it becomes a very difficult discussion.”
The peer-reviewed
EEA study was compiled by 60 contributing authors and institutions,
including the EU’s Joint Research Centre. The report, which
contains new observations and projections, looked at a wide range of
indicators including agriculture, health, transport and biodiversity.
Over the course of
this century, the study expects average global sea levels to rise
between 1.5-2 metres, potentially threatening low-lying areas
including south Florida, Bangladesh and Shanghai.
The paper is
intended to spur Europe’s sluggish moves towards adaptation
strategies for dealing with the impacts of climate change, ahead of
an EU review later this year.
Frogs, birds,
butterflies and insects are already advancing their life cycles as
springs arrive earlier, but local extinctions of some species are
being reported. “Species are adpating but not as fast as the
climate is changing and this may cause disturbances in the
equilibrium of ecosystems,” Bruyninckx said.
Butterflies and
birds were already migrating northwards to the poles, he added.
This trend is only
like to deepen as heat extremes in central Europe grow stronger,
while the boreal forests of Scandinavia experience less snow, river
ice, and an increasing risk of winter storms and pest infestations.
On the positive side, the region’s hydropower and summer tourism
potential are likely to increase, even as a reverse trend occurs in
the Mediterranean.
Europe’s thermal
growing season is now 10 days longer than in 1992, with delays to the
end of the season more dramatic than the advance of its start. In
countries such as Spain, warmer conditions are expected to shift crop
cultivation to the winter.
In the Arctic, one
of the most rapidly warming parts of the planet, many habitats for
flora and fauna such as sea ice, tundra and permafrost peat lands
have already been lost.
Oxygen-depleted
ocean “dead zones” caused by agricultural fertilisers –
particularly in the Baltic Sea – and ocean acidification fed by an
influx of freshwater from melting continental ice will pose further
threats to marine ecosystems, and the indigenous peoples who depend
on them.
While retreating sea
ice will open up the potential for greater resource exploitation, the
report’s authors warn that “utilising Arctic oil and natural gas
resources would challenge the transition to a low-carbon society, as
it is recommended that two-thirds of known global fossil resources
remain in the ground if the 2C warming limit of the UNFCCC [UN
framework convention on climate change] is to be met.”
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