This is a classic article from New 杏吧原创鈥檚 archive, republished as part of our 50th anniversary celebrations
A TALKING point at this year鈥檚 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science was the likelihood of a warming 鈥済reen-house effect鈥� produced by a build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. So far, most predictions about the consequences of this have been rather vague, accurately reflecting deficiencies in present-day understanding of the mechanisms of climatic change. But a team at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, UK, has now come up with a more detailed scenario for a warmer world. The importance of this study is that it pinpoints the way rainfall might change as the world warms; the scenario suggests that warming would bring drier conditions to most of the US, across Europe and over the great grain-growing regions of the USSR.
With present strains on world food markets, and the political repercussions of a massive purchase of grain by the USSR, it is difficult to see how a shift into the climatic regime sketched out in the latest scenario could be accomplished smoothly, from the viewpoint of the inhabitants of the regions affected.
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In this context, the plea from the East Anglia team that its work highlights the need for more research should be taken as something more than the conventional obeisance from academics to the holders of the purse strings. Just under a year ago, a meeting at the World Meteorological Organization鈥檚 headquarters in Geneva highlighted the carbon dioxide problem as a major cause for climatic concern. Events since then have confirmed the accuracy of this assessment, and some idea of the specific problems involved is now emerging. And yet, no serious effort is being made to curtail the destruction of our dwindling reserves of tropical forest, the main cause of carbon dioxide build-up in the past hundred years, or to require fossil-fuel power stations to scrub carbon from the gases they release.
This article was originally published in New 杏吧原创 on 17 January 1980
50 Years of New 杏吧原创: The Best Articles 鈥� find many more in our exclusive Special Report. You can also have your say on what you think was the biggest scientific advance of the last 50 years, in our
