ESLvideo Quiz
Climate Change: What would happen If The World Warms Up By 2°C?
Two degrees is the target for limiting the global temperature increase. But even that limit will have a dramatic effect on the world's climate.
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Two degrees is the target for limiting the global temperature increase, but if greenhouse gas emissions were altered now temperature would still rises by up to 1 degree celsius. Six thousand years ago temperatures were at this level and America's midwest was a desert. The world’s food production center will become barren again. In this future mountains loses their glaciers and rivers vanish. The indian subcontinent fighting for survival. A single degree temperature increase could eliminate fresh water for a third of the planet within 85 years. Warming at the poles happens faster than the global average : 40% of the arctic sea ice has disappeared in the last 30 years.While ice reflects heat, oceans absorb it so as ice melt the process becomes self-reinforcing. More ocean surface means more heat absorbed which raises temperatures making ice less likely to reforme.
Mountainous regions are at greater risk of landslides as the permafrost which helped them together for thousands of years melts away. Low-lying countries like the Maldives is submerged as sea levels rise. And countries already hit by hurricanes face ever greater storms. At a 2 degrees rise people begin to die in what are now considered normal summers. In 2003 with temperatures 2.3 degrees above average 52,000 people died across Europe. Plant growth slows down then stops. They don't absorb carbon dioxide as efficiently instead emitting it. The extra carbon sees global warming spiral out of control. 125,000 years ago when temperatures were 2 degrees higher sea levels were up by 6 meters. Today that extra water makes up a polar ice which is melting, by the year 2100 sea levels could rise by a meter, displacing 10 % of world's population.
In this 2 degree future, ecosystems across the globe collapse as species migrate and fall out of sync a third of all life on earth faces extinction. Scientists say we can still avoid a 2 degree rise if we limit our carbon emissions to now more than 2.9tn tonnes we’ve already used 1.9tn tonnes we have 1tn left to use between now and forever. At the current rate will use it in just 21 years.
Mountainous regions are at greater risk of landslides as the permafrost which helped them together for thousands of years melts away. Low-lying countries like the Maldives is submerged as sea levels rise. And countries already hit by hurricanes face ever greater storms. At a 2 degrees rise people begin to die in what are now considered normal summers. In 2003 with temperatures 2.3 degrees above average 52,000 people died across Europe. Plant growth slows down then stops. They don't absorb carbon dioxide as efficiently instead emitting it. The extra carbon sees global warming spiral out of control. 125,000 years ago when temperatures were 2 degrees higher sea levels were up by 6 meters. Today that extra water makes up a polar ice which is melting, by the year 2100 sea levels could rise by a meter, displacing 10 % of world's population.
In this 2 degree future, ecosystems across the globe collapse as species migrate and fall out of sync a third of all life on earth faces extinction. Scientists say we can still avoid a 2 degree rise if we limit our carbon emissions to now more than 2.9tn tonnes we’ve already used 1.9tn tonnes we have 1tn left to use between now and forever. At the current rate will use it in just 21 years.
