Global climate change ‘irreversible’

GLOBAL climate change will be “irreversible” for 1,000 years, scientists declared yesterday.

Rising worldwide temperatures will be unstoppable despite attempts to adopt greener lifestyles, researchers warned.

Halting carbon emissions will not see temperatures reduce before the year 3000, according to the US-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research Laboratory.

Susan Solomon, who led the research, said cutting emissions remained important. But she added: “People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 years — that’s not true.”

Ms Solomon is lead author of an international team’s paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

She defines irreversible as change that would remain for 1,000 years even if humans stopped adding carbon to the atmosphere immediately.

Ms Solomon said: “Climate change is slow, but it is unstoppable — all the more reason to act quickly, so the long-term situation does not get even worse.”

The latest findings were announced as US president Barack Obama ordered reviews that could lead to greater fuel efficiency and cleaner air, saying the Earth’s future depends on cutting air pollution.

Alan Robock, from Rutgers University in New Jersey, agreed with the research, adding: “It’s not like air pollution where if we turn off a smokestack, in a few days the air is clear. It means we have to try even harder to reduce emissions.”