Malta could be facing historically extreme temperatures by 2038, according to a study on climate change by the University of Hawaii published in Nature, an international weekly science journal.

“The seesaw variability of global temperatures often engenders debate about how seriously we should take climate change. But within 35 years, even the lowest monthly dips in temperatures will be hotter than we’ve experienced in the past 150 years, according to a new and massive analysis of all climate models. The tropics will be the first to exceed the limits of historical extremes and experience an unabated head wave that threatens biodiversity and heavily populated countries with the fewest resources to adapt,” the University said in a press release.

The climate changed index accounts for two scenarios. The first is a business-as-usual scenario with no reduction in C02 levels. This scenario pegs Valletta as reaching historically extreme temperatures by 2038, which is 9 years sooner than the global average of 2047. Under an alternate scenario with greenhouse gas emissions stabilisation, Valletta will reach these historical extremes by 2054, 15 years sooner than the global average of 2069.

The study predicts that the Earth’s biological systems will be faced with a fight or flight scenario, and the tropics, which hold the world’s greatest diversity of marine and terrestrial species, will experience unprecedented climates some 10 years earlier than anywhere else on Earth.

“Rapid change will tamper with the functioning of Earth’s biological systems, forcing species to either move in an attempt to track suitable climes, stay and try to adapt to the new climate, or go extinct,” the University said.

The study says that in predominantly developing countries, over one billion people under a best-case scenario, and five billion under a business-as-usual-scenario, live in areas that will experience extreme climates before 2050.

This raises concerns for changes in the supply of food and water, human health, wider spread of infectious diseases, heat stress, conflicts, and challenges to the economies.

“Our results suggest that countries first impacted by unprecedented climates are the ones with the least capacity to respond. Ironically, these are the countries that are least responsible for climate change in the first place,” said co-author of the study Ryan Longman.

The index used the minimum and maximum temperatures from 1860-2005 to define the bounds of historical climate variability at any given location.

Under the worst cases scenario, Rome will be experiencing historically high temperatures by 2044, and London by 2056.