Today, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released their sixth assessment report of the global climate. The news is not good.
Human kind must reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and fast, to avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis, according to the report. On tomorrow’s one-year anniversary of the derecho, Iowa’s latest extreme weather event, the Hawkeye State should pay attention to what scientists have to say. So should we all.
Climate change is affecting every region on earth, in multiple ways.
What does that mean for Iowans and others in the Midwestern states?
- Increases in drought with continued increases going forward.
- Projected increase in extreme precipitation.
- Projected increase in river and pluvial flooding.
- Projected increases in winter precipitation.
There is a lot of information in the report and rather than summarize it here, I’ll direct readers to the report itself. There are summaries and a wealth of information. It can be viewed and downloaded at this link: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/
“If we reduce emissions to net zero by 2050, we can keep temperatures close to 1.5C,” wrote Dr Valérie Masson-Delmotte, co-chair of the IPCC. Achieving that would help prevent climate change’s worst effects.
For headlines from the report, click here.
~ IPCC is the international body created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) for assessing the science related to climate change.
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