Leeds Will Be Like Melbourne By 2050!

Without drastic action, a report published last week reveals, Leeds will have the climate of present-day Melbourne by 2050.

The research was conducted by the Crowther Lab, part of the Institute of Integrative Biology based in Switzerland, and makes predictions about the future climates of 520 major cities around the world. 77% of these, it concludes, are set to experience a ‘striking change of climate conditions’ in the next 30 years, and 22% will encounter environmental conditions that don’t currently exist.

The most dramatic shifts, according to the report, will be seen in cities with northern latitudes, the climates of which could come to resemble those of cities over 1000km to the south of them, with massive temperature increases across Europe in both the summer and winter months.

Among such cities accounted for by the report are London, set to have the climate of today’s Barcelona by 2050, St. Petersburg, which will come to resemble Sofia, and Madrid, which will develop climactic conditions similar to those currently found in Marrakesh. Leeds, the report predicts, is on track to see an 2ºc rise in annual temperature, with a 4.6ºc increase in its warmest month and one of 2.7ºc in its coldest.

Temperature changes are likely to be smaller in the world’s tropical regions, but these areas will experience great shifts in precipitation, with their wettest months becoming 5% wetter, and their driest ones becoming 14% drier. If these conditions materialise, therefore, the tropics face a greatly increased threat of severe drought in the coming years.

It is noted in the report, however, that the predictions being made are, in fact, the best case scenario, and were formulated based in the idea of a future where some of the mitigation policies recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had been adopted. Specifically, the results factor in some of the positive ameliorative affects which would come from the stabilization of CO2 emissions by 2050, and a global temperature increase of only 1.4ºc. The authors of the report themselves describe hopes for this situation as ‘optimistic’ and they have not made predictions about a future we may well be heading for in which global warming exceeds these levels.

In reality, there is much uncertainty as to the results in large swathes of the world, especially in those cities which are on track to assume climate conditions never experienced before, 64% of which are in the tropics. Of the 520 major cities covered in the study, 104, including Jakarta, Singapore and Delhi are expected to change in unprecedented ways.

Overall, the report demonstrates, by 2050, cities will be hotter, wet seasons wetter and dry seasons drier, increasing the likelihood of devastating flooding and droughts and presenting new health and infrastructural problems which the world is not prepared to handle. With these results, the report states, “The need to act becomes tangible.”

On the same day as the report’s publication, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), an advisory body to the UK government, released their annual Progress Report to Parliament, slating past and present inaction on environmental issues. The priority given to adaptation in the face of the climate crisis, it concludes, has been eroded over the past ten years and “England is still not prepared for even a 2ºc rise in global temperature, let alone more extreme levels of global warming.”

“Many national plans and policies”, the CCC says, “still lack a basic acknowledgement of long-term climate change, or make a passing mention but have no associated actions to reduce risk…The UK government must raise the profile, and strengthen the governance, of preparations for the impacts of climate change.”