Dublin temps will rise 3.3C by 2050, climate change study shows; London will be as hot as Melbourne
A new climate study has shown the projected climate change of major cities across the world by 2050 and the results are drastic.
The Crowther Lab developed an interactive map highlighting the changes.
The researchers believe that by 2050, London's climate will be most similar to that of Melbourne, with the maximum temperature of the warmest month likely to increase by 5.9 C.
Dublin is predicted to be similar to that of Leeds, with temperatures rising by 3.3 C, while Milan is expected to have temperatures increase by up to 7.2 C and have a climate similar to that of Dallas, Texas
Monaco could become similar to Rome, with an expected increase of 3 C, Moscow is to become like Sofia, Bulgaria, and Stockholm, Sweden like today's Vienna in Austria.
Judging by the map, the countries that will experience the most drastic changes are in Europe and North America with temperatures rising up to 8 degrees- resembling that of cities over 1,000 km to their south, while those in far east Asia, Australia, South America and Southern Africa are to experience temperature rises of between 1 to 4 degrees.
For the research, current and future bioclimatic variables from the co-ordinates of 520 cities were extracted, with future conditions for 2050 devised from the IPCC's Representive Concentration Pathway RCP4.5 (a greenhouse gas concentration trajectory).
However, the results "represent an optimistic scenario where the implementation of mitigation policies will have stabilised CO2 emissions bu the mid-century and the mean global temperature will have increased by 1.4C", meaning the data is a best-case scenario, and the reality could be far greater.
The results of the analysis has shown that 77% of the world's cities will experience a striking change of climate conditions. 22% of those will experience conditions that currently do not exist.
The researchers said: "We believe that is through this comparison with current cities and their known struggles with their climate conditions that the need to act becomes tangible...
"... Even though our analysis contains uncertainties and the predictions may change as Earth system models are refined, it may provide the context to facilitate the development of more targeted climate strategies."
However, as climate disasters continue- UN secretary general's special representative told The Guardian that climate crisis disasters were occurring at a rate of one per week- it begs the question how prepared are cities for such potential disasters.
The UK Committee on Climate Change has said "more needs to be done" in the UK, particularly with regards to flooding, "as there are no plans in place for the investment that is needed to deal with increasingly heavy rainfall".
