Back in 2009, it was 200 million climate refugees according to this article in the NYT:
There could be 200 million of these climate refugees by 2050, according to a new policy paper by the International Organization for Migration, depending on the degree of climate disturbances.
Now the claim is up to 5 times that by 2050 in the space of five years, at this rate of increase, the entire world population will be ‘climate refugees’ by 2050.
From Smithsonian Magazine by Jerry Adler:
The Reality of a Hotter World is Already Here
As global warming makes sizzling temperatures more common, will human beings be able to keep their cool? New research suggests not
The various environmental effects of greenhouse gases are potentially devastating, as we have often heard. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, made public in March, underscored the danger of widespread hunger, even starvation, resulting from crop failures. Other health threats have been enumerated by Robert Repetto, a United Nations Foundation economist, who says climate change will intensify smog, leading to “increased outbreaks of asthma and allergies,” and “exacerbate vector-borne diseases such as hantavirus, West Nile virus, Lyme disease and dengue fever.” Repetto also worries about the “extreme weather events” that some researchers say climate change will engender. “Biological systems and engineering systems are all designed for a range of climatic conditions,” he says. “Within those limits, we’re OK, …but outside those limits, the damage increases rapidly and becomes catastrophic, and we’re going outside those limits.” Heat waves themselves pose a health risk, especially for young children and the elderly—and world-class athletes. Temperatures at the Australian Open in January reached 104 degrees for four consecutive days, a condition that one tennis player called “inhumane” after competitors collapsed on the court.
(Gosh, it gets hot in Australia in summer? Who knew?)
…
There may be hordes of climate refugees, fleeing homes on islands and coasts made uninhabitable by climate change—anywhere from 25 million to 1 billion people by 2050, according to the International Organization for Migration. Even people who don’t have to move will experience a bewildering sense of dislocation as the environment changes around them—as Northern winters start to be measured in weeks rather than months. Glenn Albrecht, an Australian philosopher, coined the term “solastalgia” for this emotion, a kind of homesickness you can experience without leaving home.
“We will see the emergence of novel climates, environments we’ve not seen before in human times, and the extinction of others, around the Arctic and in high Alpine regions,” says Laurence C. Smith, a professor of geography at UCLA and author of The World in 2050. Smith says cities, industry and agriculture may benefit in places such as Canada and Scandinavia, though at some cost in psychological and cultural disruption. “Very bitterly cold winters will be less common in some places,” he says, “but instead of a nice blanket of white snow, they will have slush.” And people who move north for the weather, or for jobs that may open up as the Arctic melts, will discover that climate change doesn’t make the winter nights any shorter.
Speculative, one-sided drivel. So the old won’t benefit from warmer winters? Crop growing seasons won’t be longer? We KNOW that the greening Earth ‘danger’ is already here.
Abstract
Carlos Jaramillo et. al – Science – 12 November 2010
Effects of Rapid Global Warming at the Paleocene-Eocene Boundary on Neotropical Vegetation
Temperatures in tropical regions are estimated to have increased by 3° to 5°C, compared with Late Paleocene values, during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, 56.3 million years ago) event. We investigated the tropical forest response to this rapid warming by evaluating the palynological record of three stratigraphic sections in eastern Colombia and western Venezuela. We observed a rapid and distinct increase in plant diversity and origination rates, with a set of new taxa, mostly angiosperms, added to the existing stock of low-diversity Paleocene flora. There is no evidence for enhanced aridity in the northern Neotropics. The tropical rainforest was able to persist under elevated temperatures and high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, in contrast to speculations that tropical ecosystems were severely compromised by heat stress.
doi: 10.1126/science.1193833
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Abstract
Carlos Jaramillo & Andrés Cárdenas – Annual Reviews – May 2013
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Global Warming and Neotropical Rainforests: A Historical Perspective
There is concern over the future of the tropical rainforest (TRF) in the face of global warming. Will TRFs collapse? The fossil record can inform us about that. Our compilation of 5,998 empirical estimates of temperature over the past 120 Ma indicates that tropics have warmed as much as 7°C during both the mid-Cretaceous and the Paleogene. We analyzed the paleobotanical record of South America during the Paleogene and found that the TRF did not expand toward temperate latitudes during global warm events, even though temperatures were appropriate for doing so, suggesting that solar insolation can be a constraint on the distribution of the tropical biome. Rather, a novel biome, adapted to temperate latitudes with warm winters, developed south of the tropical zone. The TRF did not collapse during past warmings; on the contrary, its diversity increased. The increase in temperature seems to be a major driver in promoting diversity.
doi: 10.1146/annurev-earth-042711-105403
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Abstract
PNAS – David R. Vieites – 2007
Rapid diversification and dispersal during periods of global warming by plethodontid salamanders
…Salamanders underwent rapid episodes of diversification and dispersal that coincided with major global warming events during the late Cretaceous and again during the Paleocene–Eocene thermal optimum. The major clades of plethodontids were established during these episodes, contemporaneously with similar phenomena in angiosperms, arthropods, birds, and mammals. Periods of global warming may have promoted diversification and both inter- and transcontinental dispersal in northern hemisphere salamanders…
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Abstract
ZHAO Yu-long et al – Advances in Earth Science – 2007
The impacts of the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM)event on earth surface cycles and its trigger mechanism
The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) event is an abrupt climate change event that occurred at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary. The event led to a sudden reversal in ocean overturning along with an abrupt rise in sea surface salinity (SSSs) and atmospheric humidity. An unusual proliferation of biodiversity and productivity during the PETM is indicative of massive fertility increasing in both oceanic and terrestrial ecosystems. Global warming enabled the dispersal of low-latitude populations into mid-and high-latitude. Biological evolution also exhibited a dramatic pulse of change, including the first appearance of many important groups of ” modern” mammals (such as primates, artiodactyls, and perissodactyls) and the mass extinction of benlhic foraminifera…..
22(4) 341-349 DOI: ISSN: 1001-8166 CN: 62-1091/P
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Abstract
Systematics and Biodiversity – Volume 8, Issue 1, 2010
Kathy J. Willis et al
4 °C and beyond: what did this mean for biodiversity in the past?
How do the predicted climatic changes (IPCC, 2007) for the next century compare in magnitude and rate to those that Earth has previously encountered? Are there comparable intervals of rapid rates of temperature change, sea-level rise and levels of atmospheric CO2 that can be used as analogues to assess possible biotic responses to future change? Or are we stepping into the great unknown? This perspective article focuses on intervals in time in the fossil record when atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased up to 1200 ppmv, temperatures in mid- to high-latitudes increased by greater than 4 °C within 60 years, and sea levels rose by up to 3 m higher than present. For these intervals in time, case studies of past biotic responses are presented to demonstrate the scale and impact of the magnitude and rate of such climate changes on biodiversity. We argue that although the underlying mechanisms responsible for these past changes in climate were very different (i.e. natural processes rather than anthropogenic), the rates and magnitude of climate change are similar to those predicted for the future and therefore potentially relevant to understanding future biotic response. What emerges from these past records is evidence for rapid community turnover, migrations, development of novel ecosystems and thresholds from one stable ecosystem state to another, but there is very little evidence for broad-scale extinctions due to a warming world. Based on this evidence from the fossil record, we make four recommendations for future climate-change integrated conservation strategies.
DOI: 10.1080/14772000903495833
Utter garbage. A couple of classic liberal misconceptions very evident in this article :
1) misunderstanding around the concept of time …. These doom-mongers always overlay time frames that are incompatible. Climate changes over decades and centuries. Individuals get stressed out with things that happen in hours, days, weeks and possibly months. No one is going to get depressed because they pine for a time of longer winters.
2) misunderstanding about the nature of change. These left wing liberal idiots always assume that out utopian world is one absolutely static situation. It isn’t! We adapt and change all the time. Change is one of the few constants in the universe.
So, their estimate covers 97.5%? form 2.5% to 100%? There’s that 97 again!
A nice blanket of white snow vs slush. Where do they get these people and why do they have to?
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klem says:
April 30, 2014 at 3:44 am
“25 million to 1 billion people by 2050″
In 2050 there are supposed to be 9 billion people in the world. So that is a range of .28% to 11% of the population. That’s a 40 fold range. Pretty big range.
My thought as well.
Here in Florida, I suppose we now have a few million “climate refugees” who have moved here for the warmer weather. Not so many moving north to get away from the heat, either, although there are some.
If us Florida climate refugees, and similar situations, are included in that figure, then hitting that 25 million mark will be easy.
🙂
Jumping the shark is too mild a term for what the Smithsonian is doing.
The Australian Open is held in Melbourne in the Austral summer. Below is a picture of a court with high sides.
http://www.mailintalks.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/court.jpg
Why pick the Australian Open as an example of extreme weather or climate change when you only have to go to the nearest countryside and feel the difference?
Just wait the warmers of US temperature records will do what the Australian global warming dreamers did and fiddle with averages to smear desert temperatures here, to claim its hotter than hell!! And of course to help this along your tree hut “warmbangers” will activate that new High Temperature spot they found in Death Valley to achieve a really, really, really, fair dinkum new hot, highest evah!! temperature and then smear this by averaging over the whole Continental USA and some people and the media will fall for the B.S.
Not bragging, but here in Melbourne (keep up with your facts Smithsonian) we have adapted by building a tennis stadium with a retractable roof. I might say it is used mostly to keep out the rain that we were told was never going to fall again by Professor Tim Flannery, ex government climate spokesman. By the way, has anyone noticed how no one talks about taking off a layer of clothing or turning on an air conditioner to “adapt” to warming. Instead we migrate, yep we pack our bags and jump the nearest boat to go to another country legally or not because of a 2 or 3 degree temperature change? Ha, ha, ha!
‘Glenn Albrecht, an Australian philosopher, coined the term “solastalgia” for this emotion, a kind of homesickness you can experience without leaving home.’
I am just a philosopher wannabe (probably a good thing) but I have coined the term ‘bullastalgia’ for an emotion, a kind of bullsicknessof one can experience without leaving one. (P.S. The above indicates I’m either just as good a wordsmith as Glenn Albrecht, or just as bad)
‘“We will see the emergence of novel climates, environments we’ve not seen before in human times, and the extinction of others, around the Arctic and in high Alpine regions,” says Laurence C. Smith, a professor …’
One quick question, ‘How do you make a climate go extinct for chrissake?’
Seems to be the current sky is falling chant is… if it isn’t scary enough, make it much bigger, higher, devestation, etc., truth and facts don’t matter.
Apart from forgetting to mention the projected plagues of frogs and locusts, I thought Jerry Adler’s brilliant parody ticked every box (nice touch to mention that less bitter winters mean less nice snow and more yucky slush) and was an absolutely spot-on piece of text-book alarmism. Just brilliant.
It was a parody, right?
1 Billion will be a small number compared to the Billions who will be refugees from the evil results to come from tax and spend political hacks who tax and spend at the demand of nut job Earth First radicals who want higer and higer taxes to be spent on wind mills and other solar pannel graft based on the fraud of Hockey Stick climate change.
Right. After this winter I do feel like fleeing to a warmer climate.
What a load of crap. Bring on the heat!
“1 billion climate refugees”
– Name one.
‘up to 1 billion climate refugees by 2050′ sounds about right. These will be the people fleeing countries to get away from Climate taxation.
“Up to…” — Technically, if there was more than 3 climate refuges anywhere, that’s within the estimate, isn’t it?
Umm. There are loads of people fleeing California and New York State to relocate in…TEXAS! Haven’t they heard of the summers down here? Maybe they are fleeing the trend toward colder weather up there…or maybe the tax and regulate philosophy.
Climate, Environment, and the IMF
March 18, 2014
“Earlier IMF papers lay out core principles of green tax design and focus on case studies for Chile and Mauritius. And an IMF report (to be published in summer 2014 and covering over 150 countries) provides estimates for taxes on fossil fuel products to reflect pollution and other environmental impacts associated with energy use and underscores the large environmental, health, and fiscal benefits from tax reform.”
Read More: https://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/enviro.htm
…Chile and Mauritius?
It is time for the “B” Ark spaceship to be prepared. Mass evacuation.
Every winter AND summer there are millions upon millions of northern hemisphere climate refugees sitting in passenger craft heading nearer the equator. If heat was so stressful then why oh why do they do this??? For that matter why the saunas?
Smithsonian has jumped the shark and I’m not buying.
Here’s a search-results page of WUWT articles that mention “refugees”:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=refugees
Anthony: There ought to be a WUWT “category” for “climate refugees”.
Why have a billion climate refugees . . . when we can have TRILLIONS ?!?!
If you are going to make up a number, make up a big one!
“Richard Tol (@RichardTol) says:
“April 30, 2014 at 1:01 am
“I’m working with a PhD candidate on this topic so I decided to trace the claim.
“Adler in the Smithsonian cites the International Organization for Migration (IOM), presumably their 2009 paper that indeed has the numbers given.
“IOM (2009) cites four papers: Jacobson (1988), Myers (1997, 2002) and Stern (2006).
“Stern cites a presentation by Myers around 2002. Myers (2002) cites Myers (1997).
“Myers (1997) does not estimate the number of climate refugees. Instead, he estimates the number of people at risk from sea level rise, without additional coastal protection (~160 million in 2050), and the number of people at risk of drought, again without adaptation (~50 mln in 2050).
“Jacobson (1998) also does not estimate the number of climate refugees. Instead, she estimate the number of people at risk from sea level rise, without additional coastal protection; she does not give a number for 2050; she does give a number for 1 metre sea level rise: 50 mln.
“In other words, IOM padded their reference list with duplicate estimates, reinterpreted the estimates, and multiplied the highest by five.”
*****
Bottom Line:
(1) Mr. Adler’s writings cannot be trusted.
(2) As a person now in my 70s, this is not the Smithsonian Institution my college chemistry and physics professors told us about.