Climate change seen harsh in Latam, Africa, Canada

ZURICH, Jan 19 (Reuters) Central and South America, central Africa and northern Canada are likely to be hardest hit by climate change in the period from 2071 to 2100, an index compiled by scientists at Swiss university ETH showed.

The Amazon Rainforest and the Congo Basin regions are expected to experience around 13 years of extreme drought in the period, according to the study recently published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Northern Canada would also be hard hit. Many studies project that the Arctic could be free of ice in summers by 2100, threatening livelihoods of indigenous peoples who hunt animals such as seals and walrus.

The United States, Central Europe, Australia, central Asia and India are seen escaping the most serious impacts of climate change, it said.

The Swiss scientists said they looked at 2071 to 2100, the last three decades normally surveyed in U N studies to 2100 about the effects of global warming, widely blamed on greenhouse gasses released by the burning of fossil fuels.

REUTERS PB BS1912