Temperature rises that come from unchecked climate change will be at the higher end of those projected according to a new study led by Professor Steven Sherwood at the University of New South Wales, Australia. Professor Sherwood found that unless greenhouse gas emissions were cut, the planet would heat up by a minimum of 4°C by 2100, which is twice the level that the World's governments deem dangerous.
Speaking about the findings, Professor Sherwood said, "4°C would likely be catastrophic rather than simply dangerous." He added, "For example, it would make life difficult, if not impossible, in much of the tropics, and would guarantee the eventual melting of the Greenland ice sheet and some of the Antarctic ice sheet." This would inevitably raise sea levels and, as Professor Sherwood stated, would have a big impact on economies.
The new model to predict the change takes greater account of cloud changes. The research finds that as the planet warms, fewer clouds will form, meaning temperatures will rise further as less sunlight is reflected back into space.
Now that one of the biggest uncertainties - clouds - has been factored in, fellow commentators believe the research is a big advance that halves the uncertainty about how much warming is caused by carbon emissions.
However, Professor Sherwood accepts that the work on the role of clouds cannot rule out that future temperature rises will lie at the lower end of projections but, for that to be the case, "one would need to invoke some new dimension to the problem involving a major missing ingredient for which we currently have no evidence. Such a thing is not out of the question but requires a lot of faith."
