According to a recent NASA study, extreme weather events such as floods and heat waves will continue to coincide with time and space, increasing the likelihood of crop failures, wildfires, and other social ills.
To assess how climate warming will change risks such as crop failure and veld fires, it is necessary to consider how potential risks may be involved.
Problems do not come all at once, says a proverb. New NASA research shows that the old adage will be even more true with regard to climate problems as the Earth warms. According to the study, extreme weather conditions such as floods and heat waves will increase in close proximity to time and place, increasing the risk of crop failure, wildfires and other public hazards.
According to a study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, by the year 2100, rising temperatures, droughts, and heavy rainfall combined would double the risk of climate-related maize harvesting in at least three of the world’s six largest regions. regions that grow maize in the same year. The Midwest of the United States is at risk of one of these mass failures.
HEAT
Many previous studies have included a model of changes in a single climate index, such as the number of days in a given area above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius). However, major consequences often occur when the overdose occurs at the same time or in close succession. For example, Western regions are especially exposed to the effects of extreme heat and drought triggering wildfires, followed by heavy rains that create new hazards, landslides, and burns.
Climate scientists have for years worked to understand and represent these complex chains of numerical interactions in climate models – a daunting task that pushes the limits of available computer power. “It is in the last five years or so that the framework of using critical thinking has been developed in analyzing the weather in a way that you can count without having to jump over your head,” says lead study author Colin Raymond. scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
In their research, a team of researchers used a well-known German weather model called the Max Planck Institute Grand Ensemble to conduct 100 individual simulations of 1991 to 2100. Past simulations (1991 to 2020) showed that the model was capable. to represent clusters of extreme events, such as extreme heat and heavy rainfall, in line with how they really occurred at the time. Researchers have analyzed future simulations using the 2100s to assess possible future changes in climate risks, especially in potentially simultaneous or closely related hazards.
Raymond and his colleagues are focused on how your growing accumulation of both temperature and rainfall effects will affect maize. This important food crop is grown worldwide, with six major regions, or food baskets, making up about two thirds of all products. The US is the world’s leading maize producer, harvesting 419 million tons (380.3 million tons) by 2021.
Model simulations have shown that by 2100, global warming waves lasting at least three days will occur two to four times as often as they do now. Extreme rainfall for three days will usually increase by 10% to 50%. Researchers are also analyzing how these growing events will unfold in time and place. They then looked at how all these combined changes could affect future maize harvests, using the relationship between extremely hot and rainy weather and the failure of past crops as a guide.
By their excellent estimates, the probability that a set of events caused maize crops to fail at least in the world food basket in the same year will almost double, from 29% to 57%, by the year 2100. Although small, the probability that the harvest will fail in five major areas in one year will increase significantly – from 0.6% to 5.4%. The U.S. Midwest is the region most likely to be included in the three-year breadbasket failure, followed by Central Europe.
The study also explored how the risk of wildfires and human health will increase as overdose follows closely. All the results showed, “said Raymond,” that things are connected in a way that we have not yet done so. They are not just heaters. It is not just heat and drought. It is all those links that better explain the negative effects we are most concerned about when trying to prevent major disasters. “
Source Journal Reference: Colin Raymond, Laura Suarez-Gutierrez, Kai Kornhuber, Madeleine Pascolini-Campbell, Jana Sillmann and Duane E Waliser “Increasing spatiotemporal proximity of heat and precipitation extremes in a warming world quantified by a large model ensemble”, March 2022, Environmental Research Letters. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac5712
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