As the climate continues to change, hurricanes are getting worse, floods are getting stronger, and the medium-term future of our planet seems worrisome. Look a few hundred years down the line, the world might not even be similar to what we know of it now.
By the year 2500, the Amazon forest might become a barren land and the mid-western US could become a tropical jungle, as per a new set of far-reaching climate projections that a team of climate scientists from different Canadian and British universities published in the journal Global Change Biology.
Projections align with current models
It’s alarming research and is by no means authoritative and gives a look into the long-term effects of human industrialization. Several climate models predict environmental change up to the year 2100, so it makes sense to think how the world would look further down the line, the researchers said in an essay in The Conversation.
“This is surprising because people born now will only be in their 70s by 2100,” the scientists wrote. “What will the world look like for their children and grandchildren?”
Looking that far into the future could be speculative, the researchers noted. But they did learn that their projections fall in line with existing models for the near future, lending more credibility to their predictions.
As temperatures continue to soar, the scientists found, much of Earth will become inhospitable to humans and coastlines will be reshaped due to rising sea levels. This would result in huge changes in terms of both geography and human society.
Act now or face consequences
“Further, we found heat stress may reach fatal levels for humans in tropical regions which are currently highly populated,” the team wrote. “Such areas might become uninhabitable.”
Ultimately, the researchers hope their theories are proven otherwise. They concluded their essay with a plea to reduce carbon emissions by a great margin or be prepared to face the consequences.
“The Earth of our high-end projections is alien to humans,” they wrote. “The choice we face is to urgently reduce emissions while continuing to adapt to the warming we cannot escape as a result of emissions up to now, or begin to consider life on an Earth very different to this one.”
