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Scotland AD3000 ...But It's Not As We Know It

Posted on: Friday, 17 February 2006, 06:00 CST

By Ian Johnston

JUMPING off the back of an elephant, you could wander through the orangutan-filled rainforest, cross the pristine sands of the shore and plunge into the aqua- marine waters of ... the Firth of Forth. Scotland in the year AD3000 will no longer be a land of snow-capped mountains and wind-lashed storms, but resemble something more akin to an Indonesian island. At least that is what the authors of a major new report on global warming and climate change predict.

But if you like the idea of your descendants residing in an untroubled tropical paradise, think again. For while life may be rosy for some, large parts of Granton, Leith, Glasgow and the lower Clyde Valley, as well as the lower parts of Dundee, St Andrews and the islands of Uist, will be under water.

Such is the picture of Scotland in the year 3000, as envisaged by scientists at the globally respected Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, in an environmental footprint they hope will serve as a wake-up call for the world.

They now believe that the extent to which the global community reduces greenhouse gas emissions over the next 25 to 50 years will be crucial in determining the ultimate fate of the planet.

"We now know from this report that we are walking off a shorter plank than we previously thought," says Baroness Barbara Young, chief executive of the Environment Agency in England which commissioned the report. "The research shows far more dangerous and dramatic climate change effects appearing much earlier than previously predicted - tough decisions are needed soon. Many of our coastal towns could be in jeopardy and immediate action needs to be taken if we are to avoid many of these impacts."

For all the sunny splendour which the surviving parts of Scotland might enjoy in the next millennium, the study, titled Climate Change on the Millennial Timescale, warns the future will be far from bright unless we change our ways.

The Tyndall Centre, which has a base at the University of East Anglia, warns that worldwide temperatures could rise by as much as 15C, causing sea levels to rise by nearly 40 feet or even 60 feet if the west Antarctic ice sheet melts. This would create vast new areas of desert across the globe, and dramatically reduce the amount of habitable land on the planet.

Some 300 million people currently live less than 15 feet above sea level which means that, while Scotland may actually be one of the safest places on the planet over the next 1,000 years, it cannot expect to escape unscathed due to the ripple effect of global turmoil.

Increased energy efficiency in a bid to limit global warning will be crucial to how the future unravels, the scientists warn. "We need to get tough on energy efficiency," says Young. "This means much tighter standards for buildings and Government providing proper incentives for businesses from the transport sector if we are to meet our 2010 target of 20 per cent carbon reduction and tackle more strenuous targets for 2020."

Another key danger of global warming highlighted in the report is the likelihood that the oceans would become more acidic, as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is absorbed by the water and turns into carbonic acid. The falling pH would endanger plankton, tiny marine organisms which form the foundation of the food chain, with "huge implications for the rest of the marine ecosystem".

Dr Tim Lenton, the lead author of the Tyndall Centre report, says: "Only by starting to reduce carbon dioxide emissions now, and continuing to reduce them, can we avoid dangerous climate change on the millennial time scale, including the gradual melt of the Greenland ice sheet."

The study calls for carbon emissions to be reduced to zero by 2200 - regarded by many as a tough target considering that, in 2003, global carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels climbed to a record high of 6.8 billion tons, up nearly 4 percent from the previous year.

But if mankind does manage to adapt to such a sudden change in climate over a relatively short period in the history of the planet, the UK, and particularly Scotland, will be one of the better places to live. Scientists believe that ocean currents which bring us warm weather from the Caribbean would be likely to switch off, providing a cooling effect here which would mitigate the global temperature rise.

Scotland also has the advantage of rising land levels, which should help off-set rising sea levels: the country is still recovering from the weight of massive ice sheets which are expected to lift up the bedrock by as much as six feet. The south-east of England, in contrast, is expected to sink.

Lenton says: "It may be the UK is lucky in that sense. The warming is slowed by the ocean circulation slowing down. But if the ocean is transporting less heat to here, it means there is more heat going somewhere else. More warming of Antarctica might not be a good idea.

"I wouldn't expect Britain to become arid. We'd still have a maritime climate and the natural forestation would become like the tropical rainforest.

"The UK would still be a habitable place, but it would be more like the tropics today, a tropical island capable of supporting rainforest, perhaps like an Indonesian island. While it sounds great living on an attractive tropical island, it has its problems - tropical diseases such as malaria that we are not used to.

"And what happens to the millions of people living in London and other coastal cities threatened by flooding. Where are they going to move to?"

In this bizarre new world, the currently inhospitable climes of the Arctic might become the new des res.

"The Arctic probably becomes one of the more agreeable places to live," says Lenton. "But we'd have to adjust to very different seasonal patterns closer to the poles." The 24-hour darkness of winter and 24-hour daylight of summer might take some getting used to.

His idea echoes the warnings in recent weeks of a string of leading environmentalists and scientists about the very real dangers of global warming. James Lovelock, the father of the "Gaia" theory of the Earth as a living organism, has claimed humanity will be close to dying out by the end of this century, with a few remaining survivors clinging to life in the Arctic circle.

The Tyndall Centre's vision of the world is what it describes as "the most extreme example" of what will happen if humans carry on burning oil, coal and gas and exploiting other fossil fuels.

However Lenton is a little more optimistic than Lovelock, foreseeing a similar scenario but over a much longer timescale.

"Humans are very adaptable. We live almost everywhere today," he says.

"I think James Lovelock is probably painting the right picture; the question is simply about how soon the changes happen. And that's partly under our control: whether we let the emissions carry on broadly as they are today or start reducing them. The only way to avoid dangerous climate changes and sea level rises is to start reducing emissions soon and reduce them to zero by 2200 worldwide.

"A 60 per cent cut in emissions by 2050 would be on the right kind of lines, but it's about trying to achieve that globally this century and carrying on in the next century. It's a tough call, but I wouldn't say it's impossible. The actions of this generation and that to come will determine how things play out for the next 1,000 years or so and whether we make some of our main population centres uninhabitable."

Dr Richard Dixon, of environmental group WWF Scotland, believes the zero carbon emissions target should be reached by 2100 rather than 2200.

"If we do see these sort of sea-level rises, large parts of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee, the Fife coastal towns and St Andrews will all be underwater," he says. "And if the whole equatorial belt of the world is so hot that no-one can live there, where are the people going to live? There has been talk of a billion climate refugees trying to find somewhere else to be."

Green Party MSP Robin Harper expresses surprise at the Tyndall Centre's attempt to read the Earth's palm so far into the future: "It's simply too early to tell, but they're right in that our climate could be very different indeed. There are some awful scenarios but, as an optimist, I think we may be able to save the situation if we buckle down."

Despite his sunny outlook, Harper has two words for those dreaming of cocktails on Stirling beach: "Dream on."

See epages for map of how the UK might look if the sea levels rise by more than 11 metres by the year 3000.

Source: Scotsman, The

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