Which climate zones will disappear due to global warming by 2100

AND recent study, led by scientists from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)revealed significant changes in global climate classificationaccording to Köppen-Geiger maps. The analysis showed a remarkable change in climate over the past century and predicted even more drastic changes in the coming decades. The research offers an update, now accurate to 1 kilometer, providing a detailed view of past, present and future climate conditions around the world.

The methodology used in this research combines historical data with future projections using the latest version of climate classification maps violinist Köppen, as stated in the work published in the journal Scientific data. Originally created by climatologist Wladimir Köppen, this tool has been essential to understanding the global distribution of climate.

However, climate change caused such a rapid and profound evolution that these cartographies lost their accuracy and relevance. Said modification of these maps allows for better planning and adaptation to future climate change, as they warned that urgent measures are needed to combat the effects global warming.

“Our web application,” said Albert Van Dijk, professor of water and landscape dynamics at the Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment and Society in a press release, “allows anyone in any country in the world to check and in different emission scenarios.” . You can see how to do it in Australia extends the hot desert region and moderate areas are reduced. The climate map of the future assumes that nations will meet their climate goals. It could have been a lot worse. Or it might be better if we finally treat climate change with the urgency it needs.”

Köppen was a 19th century Russian botanist who later retrained in meteorology. During his career he combined both interests, fascinated by the relationship between climate and vegetation types.

Around 1900 he designed an influential system climate classification which today bears his name together with his collaborator Rudolf Geiger. With some differences, it remains the most widely used classification system because it combines various aspects of climate data into landscape and vegetation types that actually range from tropical rainforests, savannas, and deserts to temperate and boreal forests, tundra, glaciers, and ice sheets. .

The Köppen-Geiger classification has five main climate classes: tropical, dry, temperate, cold and polar. These are divided into 30 subclasses based on the amount of precipitation and temperatures in summer and winter.

You might think it would be relatively easy to determine whether climate change moved the region to a new classification. Add in the 1.2°C of global warming recorded so far and it changes everything.

“Unfortunately, it’s not that easy to determine,” continues the specialist. This is because climate change can have strange regional effects. In some areas it rains much more and in others much less. Some regions are warming faster than the global average and others are warming more slowly. Climate models predict that such differences will continue to exist. Furthermore, it will have a certain degree of heating and major impact on the edge of a glacier than in the Sahara.”

To find out what will happen, the specialists analyzed extensive databases of past weather observations and future climate projections under different socioeconomic and emissions trajectories. redraw the Köppen map. “We did it on a very fine scale, dividing the world into square kilometers so that we could observe localized changes in mountainous areas and small islands,” said the specialist.

The results were surprising: in some parts of the world the climate zone have already changed considerably since Köppen drew his first climate map more than a century ago. The fastest adjustment took place in The last decade. The greatest changes are recorded in the cold and polar climate, which they are less cold and sometimes even drier.

Eastern Europe has been at the center of change in the last century. Its continental climate with cold winters and warm summers has given way to a temperate climate with hot summers.

Several countries already they changed the climate zone on more than half of its surface. For example, Hungary is the nation that has done it the most. A whopping 81% of the country has already moved to a different, milder climate zone. Other global hot spots include Central Europe, the Middle East and South Korea. “Our projections show that these regions are among those that will suffer the greatest climate changes until 2100. Some change zones more than once,” reports Van Dijk.

Moose countries in more extreme latitudes You will see some of the most important adjustments. Almost a quarter (24%) of Canada and Russia have already moved to another climate zone since the first Köppen map. Another 39-40% of its vast continental mass will follow the same path by the end of the century. A similar story applies to Europe, where climate zones will change by one-third to two-thirds of the area in most countries.

South Africa and the neighboring countries of Eswatini and Lesotho are changing the fastest in the southern hemisphere. Its climate zones have shifted over 28% of its combined area. By 2100, another 44% will be different. In Australia, climate zones have already mutated in 14% of the country, with another 13% predicted for the rest of this century.

In some areas, climate zones may not move. “This is because the Köppen region represents a specific range of temperature and precipitation conditions, and the area can move within that range,” says Van Dijk. But Köppen He didn’t foresee what would happen now. In their classification, deserts and tropical climates are at the upper end of the temperature scale and cannot change: they are just warmer“.

For the specialist, it will save it on the spot “such dramatic and rapid changes which already are changing natural ecosystems. As the effect of global warming progresses, it will force significant changes on our farms and infrastructure. Humanity gets half of its calories from only three plants (rice, corn and wheat), and each of them has a preferred climate.”

A warmer and drier climate leads to more droughts, as well as crop failures, water shortages, ecosystem degradation, forest fires and desertification. Warmer winters, extreme heat, drought and fires have affected forests around the world, from the cold high latitudes of Canada and Russia to the dry forests of the Mediterranean region, California and Australia. Even the Amazon rainforest is affected.

“Of course, some changes can be beneficial for people,” encourages Van Dijk, “for example, better farming conditions or lower heating costs in cold areas. But the general picture is calamitous changes. Over the next decades, all commitment will be necessary and humanity’s ingenuity to avoid a major climate catastrophe,” he concluded.

*Information contained in this press article is derived from research entitled “High-resolution (1 km) Köppen-Geiger maps for the period 1901-2099 based on CMIP6 constrained projections”, published in Scientific data, by Hylke E. Beck, Tim R. McVicar, Noemi Vergopolan, Alexis Berg, Nicholas J. Lutsko, Ambroise Dufour, Zhenzhong Zeng, Xin Jiang, Albert IJM van Dijk, and Diego G. Miralles. In addition to the press release issued by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.