"The coming crisis", we hear regularly, about global warming.
What if she was already there?
Researchers at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute analyzed more than 10,000 published studies on global warming between 1951 and 2018.
It shows that 80% of the Earth is affected by changes in temperature and precipitation linked to global warming, i.e. a territory that includes 85% of the world's population.
“Our study leaves no doubt that the climate crisis is already being felt almost everywhere in the world.
It is also widely documented scientifically, ”said Max Callaghan, one of the authors of the study published in Nature on Monday.
A lack of knowledge of the climate of poor countries
Research on climate change has grown exponentially in recent years, with around 1,500 studies published between 1951 and 1990, up from 75,000 to 85,000 in the past five years.
However, studies document the impacts much more in rich countries, while poor countries very often fall by the wayside.
Trends in precipitation and temperature changes in Africa could be linked to climate change, "but we don't have a lot of studies documenting the consequences of these trends," says Max Callaghan, who sees it as a "blind spot". .
"Our global map of climate impacts provides guidelines for the global fight against global warming, for the assessment of regional and local risks and also for actions on the ground in terms of climate adaptation," says Callaghan, in a statement.
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Thus, if this study does not allow us to say to what extent these variations in rainfall and temperatures affect different populations, it reminds us that global warming is a global phenomenon, which affects the whole planet, one of the conclusions that also had presented the IPCC, last August.