Constraints of fossil fuels depletion on the projections of global warming
A new projection of the future climate change is shown here, accounting for the depletion of the fossil sources of energy. We developed an emissions scenario up to 2100 for the most important greenhouse gases and the SO2 aerosols. This scenario was used by the coupled gas-cycle/climate model MAGICC to draw a projection for the atmospheric CO2 concentration and the related global temperature change of the 21st century. The outcomes show that the CO2 concentration will increase up to about 525 ppm by the end of the century and the temperature rise will be about 2.1 °C above the pre-industrial level. Both temperature and CO2 concentration will reach a peak after the date of 2100. The present result shows lower values relative to the projections based on the IPCC SRES scenarios. However, we find that a level of dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system might be already experienced well before the end of the 21st century, despite the exhaustion of fossil fuels. Since any future improvement of fossil fuels recovery and new discoveries will lead to higher emissions, the present results should be considered as a lower bound to the projections of future CO2 concentration and temperature.