India is becoming a desert, yet there will be rich farmland in Antarctica – this is what our planet will be like in 2500

Although researchers normally try to determine the effects of climate change until 2100, the process will certainly not stop then. However, experts can see further ahead, making models for a much longer period of time.

We hear a lot about how limiting global carbon emissions is important for the survival of the planet. However, this is a false narrative; the Earth has been spinning for billions of years, and since then complete ecosystems have come and gone, and accordingly, the planet will remain in place even if humanity does nothing to slow down the effects of climate change. So, it’s fair to say that it is not the Earth but ourselves that needs to be saved - and if we don’t, our planet will be unrecognizable and alien to us in 4-500 years.

This is what the study Climate change research and action must look beyond 2100, published at the end of September by McGill University researchers is about; it draws attention to the fact that we need to look beyond 2100, the current benchmark for projection.

If we do not make drastic decisions, the Amazon will become a desert, and the American Midwest will be suitable for growing tropical crops if they can be supplied with sufficient water by irrigation systems operating like something out of science-fiction, as due to the severe drought, even these plants will not survive unaided in one of the most fertile areas of our time.

The heat in India will be so great that it will only be possible to go out into the street in a spacesuit, and the best farmland will be found around the Arctic Circles. The Earth will be so hot that the temperatures in today’s tropical areas will be deadly, and sea levels will rise for a long time, even if we stop the world's emissions immediately.

The researchers conclude that we will not have solved the problem even if we miraculously achieve the main goal of the Paris Climate Agreement, namely, to keep the global average temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius. This is because extreme weather conditions will become more frequent in the coming centuries. Therefore, there is a need for more distant horizon scanning even if such models are significantly more difficult to develop than those with a benchmark projection of 2100, which is not unimaginably far away for people living today.

“Our projections and associated approaches to adaptation governance represent an initial attempt and have considerable uncertainty given their extended time horizon. These efforts are meant to highlight the need for more sophisticated climate and Earth-system modelling beyond 2100, including a focus on aspects of ecosystem goods and services not considered here. Our work thus provides a framework and baseline for the assessment of longer-term anthropogenic effects on climate and Earth systems and highlights the critical need for further work in this area.” – they conclude.

It is important to note that so far, we have only been focussing on the effects of climate change - other actions by a global population of up to 16 billion by 2100 could make the situation even worse. Anyone who is wondering if our race would reach the end of the century under their control and, if so, under what circumstances, should try the special browser game we wrote about in an earlier article.

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