University of Wisconsin: Global Warming
Global warming forecasts creation loss of climate zones - 03/26/07
A new global warming study predicts that many current climate zones will vanish entirely by the year 2100, replaced by climates unknown in today's world.
Global climate models for the next century forecast the complete disappearance of several existing climates currently found in tropical highlands and regions near the poles, while large swaths of the tropics and subtropics may develop new climates unlike anything seen today.
Driven by worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, the climate modeling study uses average summer and winter temperatures and precipitation levels to map the differences between climate zones today and in the year 2100 and anticipates large climate changes worldwide.
The work, by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Wyoming, appears online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of March 26.
The work, by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Wyoming, appears online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of March 26.
"We want to identify the regions of the world where climate change will result in climates unlike any today," Williams says. "These are the areas beyond our map."
Using models that translate carbon dioxide emission levels into climate change, Williams and his colleagues foresee the appearance of novel climate zones on up to 39 percent of the world's land surface area by 2100, if current rates of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions continue. Under the same conditions, the models predict the global disappearance of up to 48 percent of current land climates.
