Migration

Abstract

The climate of the Maltese Islands can be best described as being typically Mediterranean, with a mild wet winter invariably followed by a long dry summer. The IPCC FAR [255] clearly states that warming of the climate system is unequivocal as evidenced from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures and average sea level amongst other parameters. The last twelve years (1995‐2006) have ranked among the twelve warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature (since 1850) with a one‐hundred year linear trend (1906‐2005) of 0.74 [0.56 to 0.92] °C which is larger than the corresponding trend of 0.6 [0.4 to 0.8] °C (1901‐2000) given in the Third Assessment Report (TAR) [256]. This evidence clearly manifests that temperature will be one of the key factors which will change the human landscape and which could lead to certain areas becoming too hot to support sustainable lifestyles.