Broad threat to humanity from cumulative climate hazards intensified by greenhouse gas emissions

Mora, C., Spirandelli, D., Franklin, E. C., Lynham, J., Kantar, M. B., Miles, W., Smith, C. Z., Freel, K., Moy, J., Louis, L. V., Barba, E. W., Bettinger, K., Frazier, A. G., Colburn IX, J. F., Hanasaki, N., Hawkins, E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9477-3677, Hirabayashi, Y., Knorr, W., Little, C. M., Emanuel, K., Sheffield, J., Patz, J. A. and Hunter, C. L. (2018) Broad threat to humanity from cumulative climate hazards intensified by greenhouse gas emissions. Nature Climate Change, 8. pp. 1062-1071. ISSN 1758-678X doi: 10.1038/s41558-018-0315-6

Abstract/Summary

The ongoing emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is triggering changes in many climate hazards that can impact humanity. We found traceable evidence for 467 pathways by which human health, water, food, economy, infrastructure and security have been recently impacted by climate hazards such as warming, heatwaves, precipitation, drought, floods, fires, storms, sea-level rise and changes in natural land cover and ocean chemistry. By 2100, the world’s population will be exposed concurrently to the equivalent of the largest magnitude in one of these hazards if emmisions are aggressively reduced, or three if they are not, with some tropical coastal areas facing up to six simultaneous hazards. These findings highlight the fact that GHG emissions pose a broad threat to humanity by intensifying multiple hazards to which humanity is vulnerable.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/80788
Identification Number/DOI	10.1038/s41558-018-0315-6
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > NCAS Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	Nature Publishing Group
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