News from the global water sector (September 2008)

Abstract

Global news Earth impacts linked to humancaused climate change A new NASA-led study shows humancaused climate change has made an impact on a range of Earth’s natural systems, including permafrost thawing, plants blooming earlier across Europe, and lakes declining in productivity in Africa. “This is the first study to link global temperature data sets, climate model results, and observed changes in a range of physical and biological systems to show the link between humans, climate and impacts,” noted Cynthia Rosenzweig of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Science and lead author of the study, published in Nature. Rosenzweig and her colleagues also found the link between humancaused climate change and observed impacts on Earth holds true at the scale of individual continents, particularly in North America, Europe and Africa. To arrive at the link, the scientists built and analysed a database of more than 29 000 data series pertaining to observed impacts on Earth’s natural systems. The data were collected from about 80 studies.

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