Turkana women seek for water from dry wells. Effects of global warming are quickly catching up on Kenya. [Photo: IRIN]An increase of just 2°C (3.6°F) in global temperatures could make the world considerably drier and more desert-like, new research has warned.More than a quarter of the world's land surface, home to more than 1.5 billion people, would become more exposed to arid and droughts and wildfires could be widespread.The areas most affected areas are parts of South East Asia, Southern Europe, Southern Africa, Central America and Southern Australia. Turkana in Kenya, the report states, is often in drought and can go over a year without a single drop of rainfall. Aridification is a serious threat because it can critically impact areas such as agriculture, water quality, and biodiversity. The increase in temperature and drier world would lead to more droughts and wildfires.By limiting the temperature increase to 1.5ºC (2.7°F) the impact would be far less. Aridity is a measure of the dryness of the land surface, obtained from combining precipitation and evaporation."Aridification would emerge over 20 to 30 per cent of the world's land surface by the time the global temperature change reaches 2ºC (3.6ºF)," said Dr Manoj Joshi from the University of East Anglia's School of Environmental Sciences and one of the study's co-authors.The research team studied projections from 27 global climate models and identified areas of the world where aridity will substantially change.The Paris Agreement, which was first signed in 2015, it is an international agreement to control climate change.It hopes to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C (3.6ºF) 'and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C (2.7°F)'.

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