Water is scarce in Mexico due to warming

Angelica Enciso L.

Newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, November 16, 2022, p. 19

There is a critical situation and climate crisis on the planet, all there is in terms of emissions and warming forecasts is that it will get warmer. not good news. Only in Mexico is it expected that the increase will be faster than on a global scale, it has already risen by 1.70 degrees Celsius in a century, while the average for the planet is 1.23, warned experts from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

At the conference on the State and perspectives of climate change in Mexico and a look at COP27, which is taking place in Egypt, Francisco Estrada, coordinator of the UNAM Climate Change Research Program, indicated that there are things that are going to happen, as if the global average temperature of 1.5 degrees Celsius is exceeded in 10 or 15 years.

When presenting progress of the specific study for Mexico on the subject, he highlighted that precipitation has risen by 2.9 percent on average, but the distribution in space has been modified, it rains more in total and there are more consecutive dry days. Rainfall from extreme events has increased over time, with very rainy days rising by 54 percent. He indicated that from 2040 to 2060 an increase of 2 to 2.5 degrees in the average temperature is expected, the more emissions there are, the more the temperature rises.

For her part, Amparo Martínez, a researcher at the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate Change, in relation to water resources, pointed out that periods of water scarcity are expected in the center and north of the country, drops in agricultural production and increased agri-food dependency.

Under a scenario of inaction, agricultural production capacity is drastically reduced and with it there are considerable socioeconomic costs. The value of the costs of climate change would be around twice the total national agricultural GDPhe explained.

Regarding the floods caused by rains in the country, he estimated that they have an impact of 7 billion dollars, in 2080 it would be 116 billion, while those that come from a rise in sea level, their current impact is 130 million dollars. dollars and in 2080 it would be 110 billion.

adapt or die

Researcher Carlos Gay considered that we are currently facing the need to think about adapting, If from 2060 carbon dioxide begins to be removed from the atmosphere at the end of the century, it can reach a 1.5 degree increase in temperature.