SCIENTISTS PREDICT
MORE FLOODS, DROUGHTS - COULD EXPAND FOOD CRISIS
Yahoo News
April 2008
Scientists predicted Thursday that climate change in coming decades will cause more
flooding in the Northern Hemisphere and droughts in some southern and arid zones.
In addition, they said that some
areas around the Mediterranean, parts of southern Africa, northeastern Brazil and the western U.S.
region will likely suffer water shortages.
Rajendra Pachauri, the chief U.N. climate scientist, said at the end of
a meeting in Budapest that the rising frequency and intensity
of floods and droughts could lead to a food crisis.
"We may see a decline in agriculture production," said Pachauri,
who is also chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared last year's Nobel Peace Prize with former
Vice President Al Gore.
An IPCC report presented at the meeting said the decline of water quantity and quality would
lead to shortages of water for drinking and agriculture.
Millions of Africans could be afflicted by such water problems
by 2020, unless action is taken to mitigate climate change, experts said.
While the proportion of heavy rainfalls will
very likely increase, so will the areas simultaneously affected by extreme droughts.
One of the co-authors of the IPCC
report said water issues would be one of the main problems of climate change.
"Everybody pretty much agrees that water
is central to the way climate change is going to affect ecosystems and every human being," said Kathleen Miller, a scientist
at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
Miller mentioned deltas of major rivers in Asia,
such as the Mekong, as one of the areas where floods were an increasing concern.
"Those
places will be much more vulnerable," Miller said.
She said that in the U.S.
"there's a high likelihood of the west getting drier."
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