ROME - When discussing the theories of how our planet will change its face as a result of climate change, most find it difficult to perceive the real drama of the phenomenon. But when the images show areas of our house like an alien world (the river near the house, for example, has become a dry stream for many months a year; or the white peaks of mountains are replaced by jagged peaks that break up and downstream franano, or fields of wheat are swallowed by the sand) So the reality is expressed in its tragedy.

And that's what the documentary shows the National Geographic Channel titled Six Degrees could change the world will be presented on 14 January Auditorium in Rome on the occasion of the Festival of Science in Rome and revived in the tv 3 February.

A planet without the Amazon rainforest and the Himalayas with the snow-free ice-free Arctic: This could be one of the pictures of our planet with a temperature of 6 degrees higher than that of 100 years ago. And the way towards such a world is witnessed by many factors. The Australia, for example, has starred in the last century the growth of one degree of temperature (global growth is 0.7 ° C): an increase that resulted in one of the worst droughts that the country has ever faced: Today in the suburbs of Sydney, there are about 500 fire year.

The tropical areas are spreading at the expense of other areas of the planet. From 1979 this day in some areas of the tropics the Earth have risen to the north and south also 500 km. “What we are seeing goes beyond the projections that were made just a decade ago. There are big changes taking place and the whole is not easy to explain”, said Dian Seidel, meteorologa del National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Usa). Another sign that worries scientists is the melting of ice.

The National Geographic documentary shows a particularly striking example: the Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland is moving around 40 meters per day, faster than any other glacier in the world and melt at a rate twice as fast compared to the past. The mass of ice that comes off in just two days contains the equivalent of the annual water needs of New York.

However, you should not hide, that in the face of disaster, there will be some areas of the planet who will benefit from global warming. La Gran Bretagna, for example, is undergoing a true revolution in agriculture: currently has over 400 types of grapes for wine and champagne, While some farmers are experimenting with the cultivation of olive trees. In Groenlandia, where the longer growing potatoes, for some years have also started cultures of another type. It is worth asking, however,, If these benefits are worth the loss of Venice: already, because according to the authors of the documentary with a temperature of 4 ° above will now submerged by the waters of the Adriatic.

LUIGI BIGNAMI

Source: Republic