Human-made climatechange may already be affecting at least 85% of the world’s population, according toa new AI analysis.
Scientists produced the estimate by usingthe BERT language modeltoextractenvironmental assessments from research papers.
Their algorithm was first trained on more than 2,000 hand-coded documents. It was then applied to a trove of studies published between 1951 and 2018.
In total, thealgorithmidentified more than 100,000 papers documenting the effects of climate change.
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The researchers then used locationdatafrom the studies to map the impacts around the world.
They found thatanthropogenic climate change already impacts at least 80% of the world’s land area, where 85% of the global population resides.The real figure, however, is likely to be even higher.
An attribution gap
The researchers found that climate change studies were twice as likely to focus on high-income countries than low-income incomes.
As low-income countries are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis, 85%is probably an underestimate.
“The fact that published evidence is sparse — even where we can observe human-caused changes to temperature or precipitation — shows that there is anurgent need for more scientific studyof the impacts of climate change in the global south,” said study author Max Callaghanin a post onCarbon Brief.
The current “attribution gap” restricts the algorithm’s accuracy, but the technique could still help human experts analyze climate research. You can explore the findings for yourself inthe team’s interactive map.
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Story byThomas Macaulay
Thomas is a senior reporter at TNW. He covers European tech, with a focus on AI, cybersecurity, and government policy.Thomas is a senior reporter at TNW. He covers European tech, with a focus on AI, cybersecurity, and government policy.
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