There is a wealth of climate change information from around the globe, but it took until Monday for a study to be released that truly synthesized the brunt of it. Researchers used more than 100,000 publications documenting the impact of weather events for a paper published in Nature Climate Change.
They then used the machine learning tool BERT to “identify and classify studies on observed climate impacts.” The big takeaway? Climate change has likely already affected 80% of the land on Earth, accounting for 85% of the global population.
"Our study leaves no doubt that the climate crisis is already being felt almost everywhere in the world. It is also extensively scientifically documented," lead study author Max Callaghan said in a press release.
The study also points to the lack of data in regions where fewer collection tools are available and may explain the percentages researchers were able to calculate. Nearly one-quarter of the people living in low-income countries lack sufficient climate change data when compared with their more moneyed counterparts.
The continent of Africa was specifically cited as a region with an “attribution gap.” According to a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report released last year, “Africa has the least developed land-based observation network of all continents.” The continent has just one-eighth of the weather station density required by WMO and just 22% of those stations meet the organization’s preferred requirements.
Africa contributes the least to climate change but is poised to face some of its most adverse affects, according to the Brookings Institute. It’s a crisis that will only get worse with time, as climate change continues to accelerate.
And, as The Washington Post notes, some of the areas with the least amount of data account for some of the most unique ecosystems. Narok County in Kenya includes the Maasai Mara game reserve and the Mau Forest, yet little on-the-ground data exists to calculate climate change’s impact there.
It’s safe to say that climate change impacting 85% of the world is likely a conservative estimate. Allocating resources to provide an even more comprehensive picture of how climate change is affecting the entire planet is key in being able to adapt and respond to the crisis.
Climate change has certainly affected me, living in New Orleans. I have more stories than I can count about extreme heat and even the occasional brutal cold snap and snow storm. Just five years ago, the city experienced a 43-day run of temperatures dipping no lower than 80 degrees at night. Living in a masonry former slave quarters in the French Quarter with just two window units meant sweating through the evenings, with little respite.
That summer in 2016 felt like an anomaly but may soon become the new normal. How has climate change altered where you live and how you survive your area’s worst weather?