We have to put our energy and imagination into adapting to what it brings

Professor Martin Parry

The report, edited by Professor Martin Parry of the University of East Anglia, suggests that the impact of climate change will vary starkly across Europe.

Although northern countries, such as the UK, can expect more flooding, southern Europe may warm so much that their tourist industry suffers.

And more than half of all Alpine glaciers could disappear this century.

The report is Europe's contribution to the third assessment of global warming by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is to be published in mid-2001.

Worse for south

The European Union-funded report concludes that:

• annual temperatures will rise between 0.1 and 0.4C each decade
• heavy rainfalls will increase in frequency, especially in winter
• cold winters will become much rarer by the 2020s and almost non-existent by the 2080s
• by then, almost every summer will be hotter than the hottest summer experienced once a decade at the moment
• rain and snowfall will increase in northern Europe by between 1 and 2% each decade, while southern Europe will experience rather smaller decreases
• global-average sea rises by the 2050s will amount to somewhere between 13 and 68cm
• southern Europe will come off worse than the north of the continent.

Summer droughts in central and southern Europe are likely to increase, as will the number of gales.

Many Alpine glaciers could vanish

Other probable consequences include more avalanches and rockslides; and poorer soil quality.

Fewer tourists may be willing to risk Mediterranean heatwaves or unreliable Alpine snowfalls, and so northern European tourism could grow, it says.

The report says the mean annual temperature in Europe rose by about 0.8C during the 20th century, with 1990-99 the warmest decade recorded.

Since 1900, rain over northern Europe has increased by 10 to 40%, while parts of the south have dried by up to 20%.

And since the early 1960s, the average growing season has lengthened by about 10 days.

Change for good

There could be greater risks to human health, in some cases from the spread of pests, and wild species may become extinct.

The Mediterranean may lose its appeal

But there will be gains as well as losses.

Although more energy will be needed for cooling, less will be used in heating. The productivity of ecosystems and of most crops is likely to increase, and northern Europe's commercial forests will grow faster.

Transport will gain in western Europe from a reduction in frost and snow.

Demands on the insurance industry will rocket, but the report says it can go a long way to adapt.

Tackling change

Global warming has major implications for Europe's policies of development and environmental management, the report says.

Professor Parry told BBC News Online: "We need two strings to our bow in tackling climate change.

"Not only do we have to bring down emissions of greenhouse gases. We also have to put our energy and imagination into adapting to what it brings.

"All the evidence is that climate change is stored up in the system, whatever we do about emissions."