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A new study warns that Melbourne and Sydney should prepare for 50-degree Celsius (122-degree Fahrenheit) summer days under the Paris Agreement global warming limit of 2 degrees Celsius (4 degrees Fahrenheit).

The new study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, assessed the potential magnitude of future extreme temperatures in Australia under Paris targets of an increase in global temperatures of 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius (3 and 4 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

“Major Australian cities, such as Sydney and Melbourne, may experience unprecedented temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius under 2 degrees of global warming,” said Sophie Lewis, a climate researcher at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia and lead author of the new study. “The increase in Australian summer temperatures indicates that other major cities should also be prepared for unprecedented future extreme heat. Our climate modeling has projected daily temperatures of up to 3.8 degrees Celsius [7 degrees Fahrenheit] above existing records in Victoria and New South Wales, despite the ambitious Paris efforts to curb warming.”…more