Climate change, despite some political opinions born in North America, is a reality that is here to stay.
And not only that. Climate change is no more reason for environmental activists to give us reasons to take better and better care of our planet. The heat waves of this phenomenon are beginning to wreak havoc that today are felt in the cultivation areas that are less and less, but could soon affect a large part of humanity in certain areas of the planet.
Yes, it sounds a little catastrophic, but that is the conclusion reached by a recent study published in Climatic Change carried out by the Max Planch Institute of Chemistry and the Cyprus Institute: Climate change could cause a mass exodus of the inhabitants of the Middle East and North Africa.
Climate change, guilty of a massive exodus in Africa and Asia
The researchers responsible for this work are clear: The areas of the Middle East and North Africa could very soon become uninhabitable due to climate change. And, as they comment, the recent objective of limiting global warming below two degrees Celsius according to the UN Climate Summit in Paris last year did not stop this.
Normally the temperature of these areas of the planet is usually high in summer, but this study states that this temperature will continue to increase up to two times faster compared to the rest of the planet, reaching an average of 46C there for the year 2050 (distant, but close at the same time). Such average temperature rises now occur up to five times more than during the past millennium, and may be due to increased air pollution along with the already known rise in temperature. All these conditions will cause a massive exodus in these areas (where more than 500 million people live).
During the summer periods, the temperature of these regions it will not be less than 30C at night, reaching 46C on average by day in the middle of the century. Also, by the end of the century, average temperatures on hot days could rise to 50 degrees, associating an increase in heat waves that occurred up to ten times more often than now.
Climate change will cause worse heat waves, and more lasting
On the other hand, the study indicates that climate change worsens heat waves that are already common in North Africa and the Middle East. Between 1986 and 2005 a heat wave lasted on average about 16 days; but over the year 2050 it will not be unusual to have heat waves up to 80 days a year and even about 118 days at the end of the century.
To all this we must add the well-known desert dust clouds, which together with the contamination and the rising temperatures They will contribute to making these geographical areas uninhabitable, according to Jos Levieveld, Director of the Max Planck Institute and professor at the Cyprus Institute. A recent study by this same group of researchers published in Nature indicated that the desert dust (specifically in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria) has increased 70% since 1900 due to the increase in sand storms caused by the drought folds.
This time the study consisted of comparing climate data between 1986 and 2005 with the predictions of 26 climate models during the same time period. According to your measurements, the future is nothing flattery for the period 2046-2065 and the end of the century between 2081-2100.
