ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- Global warming is real and may get far worse, causing increasing mass migration and other worldwide security problems, a Russian scientist warned Monday.
Rising global temperatures in the coming decades are likely to cause far more intense rainfalls and increasingly destructive floods and droughts, Vladimir Katsov, the head of a geophysics laboratory in Russia and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told the RIA Novosti news agency.
"Armed with expert data, the world community says that global warming will continue and even intensify in the 21st century," Katsov said.
The crisis is likely to threaten global food resources and cause increased mass migrations that would intensify security problems, Katsov said. "Dry summers are very probable in the North Caucasus, and heavy floods are highly possible in East and Central Siberia," he said.
The impact of the crisis would possibly lead to higher temperatures in Africa and worse droughts there, the scientist said. It would also increase the melting of polar ice so that by the end of the 21st century the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free, he said. As a result global sea levels may rise from eight inches to two feet, he said.
Human activities were the main reason for higher levels of carbon dioxide, or CO2 in the atmosphere and for global warming, mainly from the use of fossil fuels and agricultural activities, Katsov said. "The results of analyses show that the current atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, exceeds levels reached in the last 650,000 years. Over 90 percent of the changes to the climate are due to the anthropogenic factor," he said.
In a report published in Paris last Friday, a United Nations group of 2,500 scientists from 130 countries said climate change was "very likely" man-made.
