Getting Hotter - Future Disasters

Think of a world as a greenhouse. The glass walls and proofs are the Earth's atmosphere, getting in the sunlight and trapping heat to keep the inside warm. But there's is a growing problem. Gases from field burnt off industry, transport and deforestation are building up in the atmosphere, so that heat is escaping more slowly. The greenhouse effects is causing global warming, which is already a cause for alarm.

Long range forecast

If global warming continues, the polar ice capabilities could melt, and climate zones across the world will move northwards. In the latitudes of Europe, for example, cool countries such as France, Germany and Britain would become sub-tropical. Sunny Spain and Italy would be scorched into deserts, and hot, dry North Africa would turn into a vast expanse of grassy savannah.

Paris in the heat

In the future, could northern cities such as Paris be sweltering in sub tropical weather?
Yes, say some experts, if global warming causes a shifted in world climate belts. While northern regions might welcome warmer weather, the possible effect on agriculture could be calamitous. The world cereal-growing regions could turn into deserts, leading to mass famine. Global warming could make change to rainfall patterns too. Regions with regular rainfall year round may soon face monsoon like downpours that cause disastrous floods. If nothing else, the world will begin to look very different. The pyramids of Egypt, for example, would no longer stand in dry desert sands, but in green grasslands.

Unwelcome visitor

Temperature may rise by as much as three degrees centigrade during the next 100 years - five times the rise during the last. This would enable warm climate plant and wildlife species to migrate North, perhaps bringing unwelcome visitors such as the deadly tsetse fly and malarial mosquitoes to the part of Europe and the United States, where these insects have never been a threat before.

Building up a storm

Global warming is blamed for an increase in number of violent storms. Hurricanes such as Mitch, which devastated Central America in 1998, are said to have become 40 percent more frequent since 1970.