JAMAICA stands to lose some of its land surface in the future, and infrastructure close to the island’s coasts could be lost to the sea, if global warming continues unchecked, according to Jeffery Spooner, head of the Climate Branch of the Meteorological Service.

Spooner said Monday that according to the findings of the latest report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it is expected that air temperatures will continue to increase, sea levels will rise as polar regions melt, and sea surface temperatures will continue to increase, leading to more frequent and more powerful hurricanes in the future.

“The findings might be frightening, but it is reality,” said Spooner, in his address on the theme ‘Climate change: myth or reality’, at the Institute of Jamaica (IOJ) in downtown Kingston.

He was speaking at the IOJ’s Natural History Division’s Earth Day essay, poster and photography competition awards ceremony and exhibition.

Spooner said the IPCC’s findings were supported by research from the University of the West Indies that showed there had been an increase in the number of warm days and nights, and a reduction in the number of cool days and nights in recent years.

Another IPCC finding, he said, was the change in rainfall patterns throughout the world, including more floods and droughts, and changes in the rainy and dry seasons.

For example, this year March was one of the wettest ever recorded in Jamaica, Spooner said, noting that 10 of the last 15 years have been the hottest on record in Jamaica. Rising sea levels, he added, could also have a devastating effect on island nations like Jamaica.