5 ms·

My ballpark guess: climate regions will shift north by a few hundred miles. In some places that will mean tundra turns to forest, in other places farmland will

My ballpark guess: climate regions will shift north by a few hundred miles. In some places that will mean tundra turns to forest, in other places farmland will turn to desert. Sea levels will also rise by a few feet. But then there will be a couple billion people living in the wrong place; they will have to move across national borders in huge numbers. This is historically linked to political instability and sometimes war. The worst part will be what we do to each other as a result of climate change, rather than the change itself, imho.

kaybe 5y ago
This is an interesting paper in this regard: Bastin et al, Understanding climate change from a global analysis of city analogues: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0217592 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... "Even under an optimistic climate scenario (RCP 4.5), we found that 77% of future cities are very likely to experience a climate that is closer to that of another existing city than to its own current climate. In addition, 22% of cities will experience climate conditions that are not currently experienced by any existing major cities. " "We notably predict that Madrid’s climate in 2050 will resemble Marrakech’s climate today, Stockholm will resemble Budapest, London to Barcelona, Moscow to Sofia, Seattle to San Francisco, Tokyo to Changsha." The information might not be new, but the way it is presented is quite tangible, since many people have an understanding of today's conditions in different cities.
- senkora 5y ago
  Well, I guess I better buy property in Seattle, then.
- makomk 5y ago
  From what I recall, RCP 4.5 is closer to "status quo" than "optimistic" at least for a while yet.
  - kaybe 5y ago
    I agree. The authors probably had a bad day. Conferences can be depressing. The IPCC reports contain the very basic rock-solid consensus of what can be expected, but while playing around with data and models things can look much scarier.

kaybe 5y ago

This is an interesting paper in this regard: Bastin et al, Understanding climate change from a global analysis of city analogues: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0217592 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... "Even under an optimistic climate scenario (RCP 4.5), we found that 77% of future cities are very likely to experience a climate that is closer to that of another existing city than to its own current climate. In addition, 22% of cities will experience climate conditions that are not currently experienced by any existing major cities. " "We notably predict that Madrid’s climate in 2050 will resemble Marrakech’s climate today, Stockholm will resemble Budapest, London to Barcelona, Moscow to Sofia, Seattle to San Francisco, Tokyo to Changsha." The information might not be new, but the way it is presented is quite tangible, since many people have an understanding of today's conditions in different cities.

senkora 5y ago
Well, I guess I better buy property in Seattle, then.
makomk 5y ago
From what I recall, RCP 4.5 is closer to "status quo" than "optimistic" at least for a while yet.
- kaybe 5y ago
  I agree. The authors probably had a bad day. Conferences can be depressing. The IPCC reports contain the very basic rock-solid consensus of what can be expected, but while playing around with data and models things can look much scarier.