Climate Change: Human Disaster Looms, Claims New Research

A human shadow is seen on a dried out field after drought in Germany. Photograph: Patrick Pleul/EPA

guardian.co.uk - by Fiona Harvey - May 19, 2013

Some of the most extreme predictions of global warming are unlikely to materialise, new scientific research has suggested, but the world is still likely to be in for a temperature rise of double that regarded as safe.

The researchers said warming was most likely to reach about 4C above pre-industrial levels if the past decade's readings were taken into account.

That would still lead to catastrophe across large swaths of the Earth, causing droughts, storms, floods and heatwaves, and drastic effects on agricultural productivity leading to secondary effects such as mass migration.

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Study - Energy budget constraints on climate response
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n6/full/ngeo1836.html