.JPG "Earthen Spirituality")
Living within a living, loving planet
Global Warming Updates
Global, not globat. Also, this poster makes the wrong point. It is not so much that we are having higher temperatures than normal. What defines normal? We are in an interglacial period which has in the past brought global warming. This is a cyclical event – one every 150k/years or so. There is no telling just exactly how warm it will get during this particular interglacial cycle. The important question is not so much why it is getting warmer, but why it is not getting cooler like it has in the past as the cycle turns back into a warm decline leading in centuries back to the, long glacial stage of the cycle? You might say “Oh well, maybe the downturn is just late and will occur in a few hundred years or so.” Observing the climb of CO2 is not surprising really because records show that the graph for average air temperature and the graph for CO2 are nearly synchronous. Which one leads and which one lags is controversial, but that they are nearly synchronous is not controversial.
Now here is the frightening news. The scientific research and media attention is focused on the causes of global warming. The warming event happened over 8,000 years ago.
We need to pay attention to the factors that we think brought down the CO2 and the temperature in the past 3 or 4 interglacial periods. One fact is the temperature dropped quickly, nearly as quickly as it rose. The maximum temperature period has always been short-lived. He present one has gone on longer than most if not all the previous ones. So be it. The two primary differences in the global conditions we face this time as compared to the past both are due to the presence of Homo Sapiens. We have caused extreme desertification coupled with a shortage of ground water and humidity and we have destroyed millions of trees and extensive grasslands. What sucks in carbon dioxide and expels oxygen and water vapour? We all know; vegetation, especially trees and the immense grasslands. I suggest it is almost certain that vegetation is the only possible reason for the steep fall in CO2 that can be observed in the graphs mentioned above.
The Milankovitch cycles and their interaction seem to me to reveal that the orbital forcing combination of eccentricity, obliquity and precession that favours cooling changed a couple of thousand years ago and it looks very much like we have missed a tipping point. Thus it may be centuries before the conditions again favour cooling. By then, our average global temperature may be so high that the tipping point cannot be reached. The following paper was written by two of the most distinguished researchers in the field of Earth Sciences.
An Exceptionally Long Interglacial Ahead? A. Berger and M. F. Loutre see: berger_loutre02.sci.pdf
“Most CO2 scenarios(15) led to an exceptionally long interglacial from 5000 years before the present to 50,000 years from now (see the bottom panel of the figure), with the next glacial maximum in 100,000 years. Only for CO2 concentrations less than 220 ppmv was an early entrance into glaciation simulated (15).”
(15). M. F. Loutre, A. Berger, Clim. Change 46, 61 (2000).
[We are at 400ppm of CO2, climbing at an increasing rate with very little hope of stopping anytime soon.]
The penny has been dropped many times but economic greed coupled with the backing of the 1% trumps common sense. I can’t recommend a workable solution.
I know this is a short explanation but I don’t wish to dig any deeper in this message. See:
| The Seasons and the Earth’s Orbit – Milankovitch Cycles |
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/seasons_orbit.html
Or if you like my plain talk, see:
http://www.earthenspirituality.com/glogal-warming/
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Global Warming: Not Reversible, But Stoppable
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-not-reversible-but-stoppable.html
Posted on 19 April 2013 by Andy Skuce
Let’s start with two skill-testing questions:
1. If we stop greenhouse gas emissions, won’t the climate naturally go back to the way it was before?
2. Isn’t there “warming in the pipeline” that will continue to heat up the planet no matter what we do?
The correct answer to both questions is “no”.
Global warming is not reversible but it is stoppable.
The explanation follows here
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February 28, 2013
Study of Ice Age Bolsters Carbon and Warming Link
By JUSTIN GILLIS
“A meticulous new analysis of Antarctic ice suggests that the sharp warming that ended the last ice age occurred in lock step with increases of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the latest of many indications that the gas is a powerful influence on the earth’s climate.
Previous research suggested that as the world began to emerge from the depths of the ice age about 20,000 years ago, warming in Antarctica preceded changes in the global carbon dioxide level by something like 800 years.
That relatively long gap led some climate-change contrarians to assert that rising carbon dioxide levels were essentially irrelevant to the earth’s temperature — a side effect of planetary warming, perhaps, but not the cause.
Mainstream climate scientists rejected that view and argued that carbon dioxide, while it certainly did not initiate the end of the ice age, played a vital role in the feedback loops that caused a substantial warming. Still, a long gap between initial increases of temperature and of carbon dioxide was somewhat difficult for the scientists to explain.
A wave of new research in the last few years has raised the likelihood that there was actually a small gap, if any.”
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Melting Permafrost
“The subject of methane hydrates has yet again been featured in the BBC news. The BBC news has featured stories about the possible deleterious effects of the melting permafrost since at least 2005. *see below. Research has been in progress on the subject for many years *see below, yet the 4th Assessment of the IPCC does not mention methane hydrates or methane clathrates. The nearest they get is to mention that the permafrost is melting:
“Snow cover is projected to contract. Widespread increases in thaw depth are projected over most
permafrost regions.” {10.3, 10.6} pg.12
Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis
Summary for Policymakers
Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
See the link below.
http://www.earthenspirituality.com/2013/02/23/melting-permafrost/
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Analysis of Greenland Ice Cores May Provide Glimpse intoClimate’s Future
Posted on 16 February 2013 by John Hartz
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Analysis-of-Greenland-Ice-Cores_NSF.html
This article is a reprint of a news release posted by the National Science Foundation (NSF) on Jan 24, 2013.
The International North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) project results indicate that melting of Antarctic ice sheet may have contributed more to sea level rise than melting of the Greeland ice sheet some 100,000 years ago.
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?org=NSF&cntn_id=126670&preview=false
“The research published this week shows that during the Eemian interglacial, the climate in North Greenland was about 8 degrees Celsius warmer than at present. Despite this strong warming signal during the Eemian–a period when the seas were roughly four to eight meters higher than they are today–the surface in the vicinity of NEEM was only a few hundred meters lower than its present level, which indicates that the Greenland ice sheet may have contributed less than half of the total sea rise at the time.
“The new findings reveal higher temperatures in Northern Greenland during the Eemian than paleo-climate models have estimated,” said Dahl-Jensen.”
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No alternative to atmospheric CO2 draw-down
Posted on 14 February 2013 by Andrew Glikson
http://www.skepticalscience.com/No-alternative-atmospheric-CO2-draw-down.html
“This article suggests that the current atmospheric CO2 level is already triggering amplifying feedbacks from the Earth system and therefore, in themselves, efforts at reduction in atmospheric CO2-emission are no longer sufficient to prevent further global warming. For this reason, along with sharp reductions in carbon emissions, efforts need to be undertaken in an attempt to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels from their current level of near-400 ppm to well below 350 ppm. NASA-applied outer space-shade technology may buy time for such planetary defense effort…….Good planets are hard to come by.”
This article reveals the facts of where we are now with CO2 and suggested methods of sequestration with a critique. A very informative article.
Climate change skeptics
Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Posted on 17 October 2012 by dana1981
http://www.skepticalscience.com/misleading-daily-mail-prebunked-nuccitelli-et-al-2012.html
It is always best to offer specific examples when talking about climate change skeptics and their misleading statements. This article is a good start. There are lots of comments from quite well informed readers. They are well worth reading. See the link above.
Summary
“To sum up, Rose and Curry were simply incorrect in virtually every assertion made in thisDaily Mail article.
- Global surface temperatures have most likely increased since 1997.
- Focusing on short-term temperature changes confuses short-term noise and long-term signal.
- Most global warming goes into heating the oceans, and as Nuccitelli et al. (2012) showed, global warming has not slowed.
- Natural variability is much smaller than the long-term global warming signal, and smaller even than the global warming signal over the past two decades.
- The slowed rate of global surface warming over the past decade is consistent with individual model runs, which show that these ‘hiatus decades’ are entirely expected.
- Over the long-term, the Earth has warmed as much as expected.
- Carbon pricing will result in a net benefit the economy as compared to doing nothing and trying to adapt to the consequences.”
“Comments
YubeDude at 12:43 PM on 16 October, 2012
This article isn’t about science as it only skims the data, albeit incorrectly, this article is just another salvo in the war for the minds of the masses who are either to busy to notice of lack the sophistication to discern the high degree of sophistry being applied. This is about using a dishonesty of words to manipulate emotions in the reader who lacks the intellect to see the obvious propaganda. Maybe the motivation is pure business, trying to appeal to the readerships demographic. Regardless of the reasons for this article, the substance is appallingly misleading noise.”
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Satellites reveal sudden Greenland ice melt
25 July 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18978483
The first image shows Greenland’s ice sheet on 8 July, the second
reveals the thawed area just four days later
Greenland’s massive ice sheet has
melted this month over an usually large area, Nasa has said.
Scientists said the
“unprecedented” melting took place over a larger area that ever
detected in three decades of satellite observation.
Melting even occurred at Greenland’s
coldest and highest place, Summit station.
The thawed ice area jumped from 40%
of the ice sheet to 97% in just four days from 8 July.
Although about half of Greenland’s
ice sheet normally melts over the summer months, the speed and scale of this
year’s melting surprised scientists, who described the phenomenon as
“extraordinary”.
Nasa said that nearly the entire ice
cover of Greenland, from its thin, low-lying coastal edges to its centre, which
is 3km (two miles) thick, experienced some degree of melting at its surface.
“When we see melt in places that
we haven’t seen before, at least in a long period of time, it makes you sit up
and ask what’s happening?” Nasa chief scientist Waleed Abdalati said.
“It’s a big signal, the meaning
of which we’re going to sort out for years to come.”
He said that because this
Greenland-wide melting has happened before they are not yet able to determine
whether this is a natural but rare event, or if it has been sparked by man-made
global warming.
Scientists said they believed that
much of Greenland’s ice was already freezing again.
Until now, the most extensive melting
seen by satellites in the past three decades was about 55% of the area.
Ice last melted at Summit station in
1889, ice core records show.
The news comes just days after Nasa
satellite imagery revealed that a massive iceberg, twice the size of Manhattan,
had broken off a glacier in Greenland.
“This event, combined with other
natural but uncommon phenomena, such as the large calving event last week on Petermann
Glacier, are part of a complex story,” said Nasa’s Tom Wagner.
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The GLOBAL global warming
signal
Posted on 4 July 2012 by
Kevin C
Conclusions
“Coverage bias signficantly impacts recent temperature trends. The
methods used here to estimate and correct for that bias are rudimentary, but
present a coherent picture of continued warming. It is striking that three
different approaches, when applied to either the HadCRUT3 or NCDC data, yield a
record which is very similar to GISTEMP. The same approaches applied to the
HadCRUT4 data lead to a greater warming trend owing to the inclusion of the HadSST3
bias corrections.
Taking into account the effect of the El Nino cycle on recent trends,
the warming rate of the largest cluster of datasets is consistent with longer
term trends. If the HadSST3 adjustments are also correct, the underlying
warming rate probably exceeds 0.2°C/decade. There are still known cool biases
in each of these time series.
We have not taken any account the impact of a possible
increase in aerosol cooling. This raises the worrying possibility that the
underlying warming rate has been accelerating, and has been masked by aerosol
emissions and the biases in the temperature series. Further developements on
SST adjustments and aerosol impacts will hopefully clarify the situation.”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/the_global_global_warming_signal.html#
It just keeps on keeping on as we watch and know that very little, and nothing effective,
is being done about it. Ecocide is a good word for it.
Another ice age will never occur
“Another ice age will never occur, unless humans go extinct. A single chlorofluorocarbon factory can produce gases with a climate forcing that exceeds the forcing due to Earth orbital perturbations.” James Hansen and several co-authors 5 May, 2011 http://fromjameshansen.blogspot.com/
I imagine many readers will think, yeah, that’s good, who needs all that ice anyway? However, to me, it is the worst case scenario, scary and very sad.
Why, [1] I believe the Earth is an intelligent being and that we are the Earth like leaves are the tree. [2] There is a direct correlation between the age of the Earth and the age of the sun. 65 million years ago there was 10 times more co2 in the atmosphere and the sun was cooler. Over the last million or so years, there has been a rest state of glaciers “ice age” for a little over 90% of a 120,000yr cycle and a short, very quickly rising and falling blip where the temperature shoots up around 6 degrees C. We are in one of those now. If the Earth has decided that this is necessary and desirable, then when we prevent that knowingly, we are not only committing ecocide but in a way risking long term suicide. We cannot possibly know nor can we make a mathematical model that will tell us what impact say a hundred and fifty thousand years without an ice age will have on the Earth’s ability to sustain life as we know it. It is not hard to guess that ALL of the ice and snow will melt over Spring, Summer and fall. The ocean water level MUST rise due to all the tons of longstanding ice that will melt. Meanwhile the sun’s heat continues to rise. Will Earth become like Mars because of Homo sapiens sapiens?
Just because we don’t actually know how and what the earth is thinking or what the Earth knows about being a planet doesn’t mean that we cannot use our intelligence to notice the direction the Earth is going and fit in the best we can. Certainly we would not be intelligent if we worked in opposition, would we?
The World Meterological Organisation
The World Meterological Organisation reports their preliminary results for 2011. It should be regarded as shocking that although we were in a very strong La Niña state which usually results in .10 to .15C cooler temperatures than preceeding years, 2011 was warmer than most recent moderate to strong La Niña years. It seems obvious to me that we will now have an even hotter El Niño period.
“The 10-year average for the period 2002-11, at 0.46°C above the long-term average, equals 2001-10 as the warmest 10-year period on record.”
Artic Sea ice
Arctic sea ice extent was again well below normal in 2011. “Sea ice volume was even further below average and was estimated at a new record low of 4200 cubic kilometres, surpassing the record of 4580 cubic kilometres set in 2010.”
Droughts and floods
There was severe drought in the North American southwest, record-breaking inTexas, with the highest ever recorded temperature for any American state. “The January-October period was the wettest on record for several north-eastern states and for the north-east region as a whole, with precipitation totals widely 30-50% above normal.”
Hurricane Irene in August and Tropical Storm Lee in September brought extreme flooding. “Parts of the Mississippi River experienced the worst floods since 1933, and there was also major flooding in the Missouri River and several Canadian rivers.”
As if this wasn’t enough, “it was also one of the most active tornado seasons on record, with numerous major outbreaks, particularly in April and May. A tornado caused 157 deaths in Joplin,Missouri in May, the deadliest single tornado in the United States since 1947. 2011 (to date) has had the third-greatest number of tornadoes since 1950, after 2004 and 2008, and the fourth-greatest number of deaths (537) on record. There were also a number of major snowstorms, including the most significant October snowstorm on record in the north-eastern states.”
These were Global events
“For the second year in succession,Pakistan experienced severe flooding in 2011. The floods were more localised than in 2010, being largely confined to the southern part of the country. It was the wettest monsoon season on record for the province of Sindh (247% above normal).”
18 December, 2011
I’ve just discovered a great website. Have a look at a personally funded, vastly informative collection of climate change facts. HERE
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BBC News
A Point of View: Climate change and craving a cause
18 December, 2011
The novels of Umberto Eco suggest that if people want to believe something badly enough, they will only hear what they want to hear. This is particularly true in the current debate about global warming, writes Lisa Jardine.
“If you want to believe something badly enough, Eco’s novels suggest, then by selective listening – by editing out the contrary evidence – you will hear what you want to hear. Nowhere is this more true currently than in the debate about global warming.”
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Arctic settles into new phase – warmer, greener, and less ice
Posted on 19 December 2011 by John Hartz
The following is a reprint of a news release posted by the US national Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Dec 1, 2011.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/2011-Arctic-Report-Card_NOAA.html
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19 December, 2011
“When faced with climate change, plant species often must “migrate” over multiple generations, as they can only survive, compete and reproduce within the range of climates to which they are evolutionarily and physiologically adapted. While Earth’s plants and animals have evolved to migrate in response to seasonal environmental changes and to even larger transitions, such as the end of the last ice age, they often are not equipped to keep up with the rapidity of modern climate changes that are currently taking place. Human activities, such as agriculture and urbanization, are increasingly destroying Earth’s natural habitats, and frequently block plants and animals from successfully migrating.”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Big-Ecosystem-Changes_NASA.html
So it is the rapidity of climate changes. Makes sense, doesn’t it? This makes me wonder if perhaps our species is having trouble adapting to the rapidity of our changes in technology, injections of nanobots, and our moving toward a cyborg existence. Not to mention our survival sans clean, wholesome food and perhaps suffering from the chemicals and Genetically Engineered additives in the stuff we pick off the supermarket shelves.
Are those of us who sense more and more trauma from our capitalistic, materialistic global economy the crazies or is it the other way around?
The United States is lagging behind China and Europe in the clean energy race!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-p-owens/newt-gingrich-global-warming_b_1229310.html
The U.S.is the only developed nation where believing in climate science is a political issue. Meanwhile, the rest of the world agrees that climate change is real; and has focused on finding innovative, profitable solutions to mitigate its effects.
When it comes to global investment in clean energy, the U.S. now ranks third, behind China and Germany (respectively). But those numbers understate the issue. In fact, China has actually invested three times more than us. This statistic is even more alarming when combined with the Pew Center study that predicts that the global market for clean energy will reach $2.3 trillion by 2030. Since reviving the sluggish economy and restoring our nation’s competitive edge remain key election issues, why are none of the candidates talking about these alarming statistics?
Gingrich’s View on the Environment
In 2007, Mr. Gingrich authored a book titled, A Contract with Our Earth, which called for “bipartisan environmentalism” to save the planet. In 2008, he starred in a commercial alongside Nancy Pelosi, for Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, in which he acknowledged that despite obvious political differences, “we do agree our country must take action to address climate change.”
For the past year, revelations like these about Gingrich have been used by his rivals to label him a moderate. Unfortunately, in an effort to appeal to conservative voters, Gingrich has pulled an about-face. According to a recent survey by The Pew Research Center, only 31 percent of Republicans believe in global warming (compared with 77 percent of Democrats).
This capitulation was never more evident than when Gingrich cut the chapter on climate change from his soon to be released book.
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4 April 2012
CO2 ‘drove end to last ice age’
By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17611404
“Our global temperature looks a lot like the pattern of rising CO2 at the end of the ice age, but the interesting part in particular is that unlike with these Antarctic ice core records, the temperature lags a bit behind the CO2,” said Dr Shakun, who conducted much of the research at Oregon State University but who is now affiliated to Harvard and Columbia universities.
“You put these two points together – the correlation of global temperature and CO2, and the fact that temperature lags behind the CO2 – and it really leaves you thinking that CO2 was the big driver of global warming at the end of the ice age,” he told BBC News.
Sky: I suggest that we look very carefully at this article. The findings are anything but conclusive. The charts showing CO2 and temperature have always shown that they are very closely interwoven. I am suspicious reading the contents of the quote below. “CO2 was the big driver of global warming at the end of the ice age” As Don J. Easterbrook, PhD Emeritus Professor of Geology, Western Washington University. Retired, reminded readers recently,[ http://wattsupwiththat.com/] correlation does not prove cause. When two phenomena move together they are often simply driven by the same phenomenon. We must ask, what drove the driver? What made the CO2 shift? Obviously we ask, What made the temperature shift? There is very little doubt that when in the midst of an ice age, a warming trend strong enough to melt glaciers almost obviously comes from an increase of heat retention from the sun. When the sun’s orbit is more circular and the Earth’s tilt allows the sun’s rays to strike the Earth in the North and South more directly and precession favours warmer summers, [not so effective when the Earth's orbit is nearly circular] then ice in polar areas will melt. It just so happens that CO2 and temperatures are low during an ice age. It is probable that as insolation increases oceans become warmer and thus expel some of the accumulated CO2 into the air. If the high insolation persists, then you get the combination of insolation and the greenhouse effect working together as positive feedbacks. From the graphs, it appears that these positive feedbacks gain momentum and cause an interglacial period in a couple of thousand years or so. There doesn,t appear to be any other factor than a temperature increase that would cause a rise in CO2. Ice core data may not be precise enough to prove which one occurred first.
“Right off the bat, a most surprising conclusion in this paper is that the authors claim that correlation proves cause. Simply showing that CO2 correlates with anything surely doesn’t prove that CO2 was the cause. It’s the same kind of mindset involved with the oft-heard claim that if we have had global warming while CO2 was rising that proves the cause was the rise in CO2.” Don J. Easterbrook, Phd
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
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Large-scale bioenergy from additional harvest of forest biomass is neither sustainable nor greenhouse gas neutral
New research from last week 14/2012
Posted on 11 April 2012 by Ari Jokimäki
http://www.skepticalscience.com/new_research_14_2012.html
Large-scale bioenergy from additional harvest of forest biomass is neither sustainable nor greenhouse gas neutral – Schulze et al. (2012)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1757-1707.2012.01169.x/abstract
Abstract: “Owing to the peculiarities of forest net primary production humans would appropriate ca. 60% of the global increment of woody biomass if forest biomass were to produce 20% of current global primary energy supply. We argue that such an increase in biomass harvest would result in younger forests, lower biomass pools, depleted soil nutrient stocks and a loss of other ecosystem functions.
The proposed strategy is likely to miss its main objective, i.e. to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, because it would result in a reduction of biomass pools that may take decades to centuries to be paid back by fossil fuel substitution, if paid back at all.
Eventually, depleted soil fertility will make the production unsustainable and require fertilization, which in turn increases GHG emissions due to N2O emissions.
Hence, large-scale production of bioenergy from forest biomass is neither sustainable nor GHG neutral.”
Citation: Ernst-Detlef Schulze, Christian Körner, Beverly E. Law, Helmut Haberl, Sebastiaan Luyssaert, GCB Bioenergy, DOI: 10.1111/j.1757-1707.2012.01169.x.
This carbon neutral claim has always sounded suspect. Chopping forest causes a loss of water distribution that limits the ability to sustain new growth. The result points to more desertification. Climate change deniers like to reference millions of years ago when the planet sustained far more CO2 in the air.
We must not forget the climatic conditions which preceded this situation. We cannot expect an increase of CO2 now to develop into anything like what happened millions of years ago. Anyway, unless our thinking changes, water supplies left available will be used to sustain humans and not trees.
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2012 Shatters the US Temperature Record. Fox, Watts, and Spencer Respond by Denying Reality
Posted on 14 January 2013 by dana1981
http://www.skepticalscience.com/2012-us-temp-record-fox-denial.html#89622
Comment by StBarnabas
“Big oil will loose trillions of dollars in unusable reserves if climate change is accepted, so it’s not surprising they will use any weapon to discredit AGM.”
I had not considered oil reserves and their value.
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Update of Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Loss: Exponential?
26 December 2012
James Hansen and Makiko Sato
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20121226_GreenlandIceSheetUpdate.pdf
In this paper, Hansen and Sato point out that the IPCC rise in sea level projections need updating. As I understand it, the models used in the past did not take into consideration the possible – Hansen and Sato suggest that it is probable- non-linear increase in ice sheet loss due to human contributions to the rising global temperature due the greenhouse effect. Sea level rises will most probably be far greater than the 1 meter mentioned by the IPCC. Sadly, it will be too late to do anything about it when enough data is collected to convince reluctant sceptics. I suggest that powers that refuse to change the status quo understand this and will at that time just shrug their shoulders and say, in effect, “Too late to do anything now, so let’s just keep on keeping on the way we have been and enjoy what we have while we have it.” Of course, only the 1%ers will be enjoying their lives whilst the rest of us waste away in cold and hunger. You don’t think this can happen?
Of course, what has not been mentioned is the question: How will Gaia maintain stable, life enabling global temperature without glaciers and ice sheets? The Gaia Theory plainly points out that the earth should be a lot warmer due to the expanding heat from an expanding sun over the last 5 billion years. We need to work hard to understand how Gaia operates and cooperate rather than destroy her enabling structures and global health measures.
“A crucial question is how rapidly the Greenland (or Antarctic) ice sheet can disintegrate in response to global warming. Earth’s history makes it clear that burning all fossil fuels would cause eventual sea level rise of tens of meters, thus practically wiping out thousands of cities located on global coast lines. However, there seems to be little political or public interest in what happens next century and beyond, so reports of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) focus on sea level change by 2100, i.e., during the next 87 years.”
“…future sea level rise of greatest concern is that from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which has the potential to reach many meters. Hansen (2005) argues that, if business-as-usual increase of greenhouse gases continue throughout this century, the climate forcing will be so large that non-linear ice sheet disintegration should be expected and multi-meter sea level rise not only possible but likely.”
“Perceived authority2 in the case of ice sheets stems from ice sheet models used to simulate paleoclimate sea level change. However, paleoclimate ice sheet changes were initiated by weak climate forcings changing slowly over thousands of years, not by a forcing as large or rapid as human-made forcing this century.”
“The increasing Greenland mass loss in Fig. 1 can be fit just as well by exponentially increasing annual mass loss, a behavior that Hansen (2005, 2007) argues could occur because of multiple amplifying feedbacks as an ice sheet begins to disintegrate. A 10-year doubling time would lead to 1 meter sea level rise by 2067 and 5 meters by 2090. The dates are 2045 and 2057 for 5-year doubling time and 2055 and 2071 for a 7-year doubling time.”
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5 January 2013
Climate change: Soot’s role underestimated, says study
By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent, BBC News
Half a degree
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21033078
The research - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jgrd.50171/abstract
“This new study concludes the dark particles are having a warming effect approximately two thirds that of carbon dioxide, and greater than methane.
‘The large conclusion is that forcing due to black carbon in the atmosphere is larger,’ lead author Sarah Doherty told BBC News.
The value the IPCC gave in their 4th assessment report in 2007 is half of what we are presenting in this report – it’s a little bit shocking,”
This is just one of many instances where the IPCC predictions have been challenged as being far too conservative. One could be quite within the realm of reasonable doubt in concluding that global warming is a far greater threat than governments want their citizens to realize. Polar ice, ocean warming, sea level rises, affect of melting permafrost on methane levels and on and on are just a few examples of instances where the IPCC underestimated.
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