DORSET and the New Forest could be in for an environmental lashing over the coming years if emissions are not cut, a report has warned.

Summers could be up to six degrees hotter and 49 per cent drier, winters 54 per cent wetter and four degrees warmer, with sea levels rising, according to the UK Climate Projections 09 study.

The Defra-funded report, looked at three different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios over 30-year blocks to 2099, breaking down the country into 25km squares.

Environment secretary Hilary Benn has warned that if nothing is done, a global rise of over 5.5 degrees is on the cards – a larger change in temperature between the last ice age and now.

Targets have been set to reduce emissions by a third by 2020 and by at least 90 percent by 2050, and Britain is the first country in the world to set a greenhouse gas ‘budget’.

Becca Eastman of the South West Climate Change Impacts Partnership said: “It just reaffirms what we had already expected which for the South West is hotter, drier summers, milder wetter winters and sea levels rising.

“The relevant organisations are already working on these scenarios.

“The important thing about this is they give us an idea of what the climate will be like in the future and to a certain extent we are tied in to some climate change because of past emissions.

“It’s really important if we don’t want to make that worse, that we do everything we can now to try to reduce carbon emissions.”

Angela Pooley, of East Dorset Friends of the Earth, said: “The UK has done some groundbreaking work, we have set targets on the reduction of emissions, and that is excellent.

“Now it needs governments, local councils, and individuals to make some real changes in their policies and individuals to make changes in their lifestyles. Otherwise it will be too late.”

Dr Richard Wild of Bournemouth’s Weathernet said he believed, if anything, temperatures had cooled in the last decade but changes of even two degrees would have a profound effect.