‘Warning flag': IPCC finds rapid land warming threatens food security

Temperatures over the world's land areas are warming at about twice the global rate, expanding deserts in Australia, Africa and Asia, and hitting food security hard, a new UN report finds.

Temperatures are rising over land much faster than
 the global average with climate change. Australia is
one nation where arid regions are expanding, the
IPCC says in a new report.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that surface air temperatures between 2006 and 2015 were 1.53 degrees warmer than the pre-industrial average of 1850-1900. By contrast, the combined warming of land and oceans was 0.87 degrees, the IPCC's special report on land said.

Compared with current conditions, though, land areas have warmed by about 1.8 degrees, and global mean temperatures by 1.1 degrees, said Stefan Rahmstorf from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Read the story from The Age by Peter Hannam - “‘Warning flag': IPCC finds rapid land warming threatens food security.”