Australia – A group of researchers published a new study on the journal Environmental Research Letters where insights on the effects of climate change were given, and found that clear signs of global warming first appeared much earlier than we thought.

After analyzing geo-atmospheric data for the last century, they found that signs of global warming were observed in the tropics in the 1960s, but Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia have been experiencing these signs as early as the 1940s.

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The finding suggests that global warming appeared in the 1940s in some regions of Australia, Asia and Africa. Photo: Nacho Doce/Reuters

First, they say, average temperatures changed in the tropics. Always known as the most sensitive point to global warming, changes in climate temperature were recorded later in areas closer to the poles, but by 1980 to 2000, temperature records in most parts of the world were already showing the effects of global warming. This suggests that global warming appeared in the 1940s in some regions of Australia, Asia and Africa.

The results of the study correspond closely to data used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its most recent report where temperature increases are outlined as being caused by global warming.

“We examined average and extreme temperatures because they were always projected to be the measure that is most sensitive to global warming”, said lead author Andrew King from the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science to Dispatch Times.

What the Future Holds

Climate change effects have been felt for quite some time, but heavy distortions in rainfall events are yet to come according to Ed Hawkins, one of the study’s authors. Climate models have recorded a general increase in the amount of extreme rainfall around the world, but figures are not dramatically beyond expected variations so the increase in precipitation has not been tagged as a sign of global warming.

The first of the heavy rainfall events associated with global warming is expected to take place in northern Europe, Russia and Canada during winters over the next three decades, according to Hawkins.

Source: Tech Times