The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has in many respects underestimated the severity of global warming and the speed at which it strikes. "From 2000 to 2007, greenhouse gas emissions increased far more rapidly than we expected, primarily because developing countries, like China and India, saw a huge surge in electric power generation, almost all of it based on coal", admitted IPCC member Chris Field, of Stanford University and the Carnegie Institution for Science.
Addressing the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Professor Field concluded that "the consequence of that is we are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we've considered seriously."
Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, are hitting new highs, with no sign yet that the world economic downturn is curbing industrial emissions, said Kim Holmen, research director at the Norwegian Polar Institute. Levels of carbon dioxide are far higher than they've ever been in at least 800,000 years.
Holmen said that carbon dioxide levels rose to 392 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere in Svalbard in December, a rise of 2-3 ppm from the same time a year earlier. That's even higher than the levels measured at Hawaii, as shown on the image below.
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide - NOAA, Mauna Loa, Hawaii
While the weather has been cold in some places over the past few months, the year 2008 was among the ten warmest years in the period of instrumental measurements, which extends back to 1880. The ten warmest years all occur within the 12-year period 1997-2008.
Long term temperature trends, courtesy NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Antarctica is warming up as well. The IPCC, as Reuters reports, thought that Antarctica would not contribute at all to sea level rise, and in fact predicted a growth of the big ice sheet that covers much of the continent from enhanced precipitation, resulting from increased evaporation from the oceans due to global warming. However, this enhanced precipitation has not eventuated in Antarctica.
If the West Antarctic ice sheet did melt completely, global sea level could rise by 20 feet (6.1 metres). In 2001, the IPCC said that collapse of this ice sheet was unlikely during the 21st century. As said before, this assessment now seems rather conservative. Antarctica contains 70% of the freshwater on Earth and some 90% of the world's ice, enough to raise world sea levels by 57 meters (187 ft), so even a tiny amount of melting could threaten coastal cities from Beijing to London.
Greenland and West Antarctica together hold enough ice to raise sea levels by 14 meters (46 ft). The minimum extents of Arctic ice reached in 2007 and 2008 were the smallest recorded in the satellite age. "You see this large warming over the Arctic ocean of around 3C (5.4F) in these last four years compared to the long-term mean," Dr Julienne Stroeve, from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, said recently. "You see some smaller areas where you have temperature warming of maybe 5C (9F); and this warming is directly located over those areas where we've lost all the ice."
Changes 'amplify Arctic warming' - BBC
As the above image shows, actual observations of Arctic sea ice extent, in red, show a more severe decline than any of the eighteen computer models, averaged in the dashed line, that the 2007 IPCC reports reference, despite warnings such as from Joseph Romm, former US Department of Energy official, that the IPCC was underestimating the impact of global warning.
Over the next two centuries, we're heading for 1800 ppmv CO2, with associated global warming, according to a recent report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Rises in surface temperature in the Arctic and the Amazon are projected to be double this average global rise, the report warns.
Climate Change: Adaptating to the Inevitable - Institution of Mechanical Engineers
The IPCC 2007 report did warn about increased deaths, disease and injury due to heatwaves, floods, storms, fires and droughts as a result of global warming. But the IPCC merely predicted temperature rises ranging between 2F (1.1C) and 11.5F (6.4C) over the next hundred years, and this seriously underestimates the scale of the problem, Professor Field said.
As Field explained, a warming planet will dry out forests in tropical areas making them much more likely to suffer from wildfires. Recent climate studies suggested the continued warming of the planet from greenhouse gas emissions could touch off large, destructive wildfires in tropical rain forests and melt permafrost in the Arctic tundra, releasing billions of tons of greenhouse gasses that could raise global temperatures even more.
Without reductions in greenhouse gases, the Amazon rain forest in particular is becoming increasingly exposed to the risk of fires, and a huge number of species could become extinct.
We've already seen fires rage in Indonesia, California, Greece and Spain over the past few years. In Australia, AP reports, at least 181 people were killed by wildfires recently - officials say the death toll could exceed 200. More than 400 fires destroyed more than 1,000 houses, leaving some 5,000 people homeless, and scorching 1,100 square miles (2,850 square kilometers) of land.
These Australian bushfires released a massive amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere - almost equal to Australia's industrial emission for an entire year, says Professor Mark Adams of the University of Sydney. Mark estimated that earlier bushfires could have put 20-30 million tonnes of carbon (70-105 million tonnes of carbon dioxide) into the atmosphere. These earlier (2003 and 2006-07) bushfires were burning land carrying 50 to 80 tonnes of carbon per hectare. "This time we are burning forests that are even more carbon-dense than last time, well over 100 tonnes above-ground carbon per hectare," Professor Adams said.
Smoke from Australian fires over the Tasman Sea and New Zealand - NASA image
Carbon emissions from forest fires are not counted under the Kyoto Protocol. The idea was that new forest would take up carbon lost in the fires. "That is true to a point", Professor Adams said, "but if the long-term fire regime changes -- we are now starting to have more fires -- we may completely change the carbon balance of the forest. All informed scientific opinion suggests that whatever new protocol is signed (at the UN summit) in Copenhagen or elsewhere will include forest carbon, simply because to not do so would be to ignore one of the biggest threats to the global atmospheric pool of carbon dioxide, the release of carbon in fires."
The Kyoto protocol has many shortcomings. Countries such as China did not have to make reductions, while some type of emissions (such as from international aviation and shipping) were not included at all. As a study at the University of Colorado once calculated, if all projects listed under Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) were successfully implemented, that would reduce future CO2 emissions through 2012 with a mere 175 millions tons of carbon, delaying total CO2 emissions by only 6.5 days.
Instead, we should implement policies that are more effective in reducing greenhouse gases, and a global cap-and-trade scheme would not be effective, as discussed earlier.
Instead, let's work on a global commitment to make dramatic cuts in greenhouse gases, while allowing each country to decide what policies to implement. But let there be no misunderstanding about this: The most effective way to reduce greenhouse gases is to impose fees on polluting practices, and to use the proceeds where they were raised, funding better alternatives there. By only insisting that, to be eligible for rebates, alternatives should be clean and safe, market mechanisms can do what they do best, i.e. sorting out what works. That would optimize consumer choice and opportunities for jobs and for investment. Such a combination of fees and rebates can be self-funding and budget-neutral, and can be summed up in one word: FeeBates.
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Comments: 140 ( 69 removed by Sam Carana )
Thanks for that admission. Actually, it's called willful ignorance.
And which scientific organization would that be?
Lets focus on something more important like famine, disease, cancer, bio-weapons, the homeless, the jobless... these things affect us directly and we can change those.
It is unrealistic to expect we are going to build a big huge CO2 scrubber for the globe or the best one i have seen recently is the shield that blocks sunlight... yeah, lets DECREASE the plant life (which CO2 makes plants grow faster) and cause the CO2 to increase even more. These are the same morons that said in the 70's when it was getting colder to make a reflector shield to make our globe HOTTER...
I never said "no major science group disputes IPCC". The IPCC is using data that isnt complete. NOAA just admitted that the "hottest year of record was 2005" when in fact they only took samplings from certain areas and they retracted that and said, "we think that 2005 was the hottest year but we should have more sampling". What is that crap? That isnt science. That is pushing an agenda. Pushing Gloom and Doom..end of the world... whatever.
We cant make a dent in the CO2 which IS NOT the worse of the greenhouse gases by the way. The top greenhouse gas, as reported by the Envirommental Protection Agency, is methane. This silent odorless gas is ten times more effective in trapping in heat in the atmosphere. In recent studies reported by the EPA, one of the leading contributors of methane into the environment was natural animal emissions; raising the question of whether or not global warming is man-made problem. So lets get Gas-X for all the insects and cattle that cause the majority of the methane.
~M
Famine, disease, economies, water supply, conflict - all of that is projected to worsen as a result of climate change.
michael: "we are focusing on something that we cant change. I think this whole topic is moot."
We had better figure it out if we want to prevent catastrophic changes. BTW, the earth's climate and biologic systems don't really give a damn about what you think (or what I think, for that matter).
Now isn't that an ironic statement.
Ironic is a nice way to say it, David.
This is a foolish statement michael A.. Their is a lot we can change and continuing to trash your environment just condoms your family, especially young children to a life of misery and hardship.
We cannot control nature but we can stop poluting the environment and adding to the destruction and making global warming more severe than it has to be.
Even tho I posted the info about a quieter sun because Jupiter is moving away from the sun and a quieter sun means usually a clooler earth, Jupiter will move back closer in 80 some odd years and the sun will be more active thus making the earth much warmer. Therefore, if nothing is done to reduce the CO2 and Methane gases in the current time period billions will die from the heat later.
Also on the warming earth side is that there seems to be a polar shift of the North and South Pole positions thus swapping places. That will probably take a thousand years to complete, however, during that time the magnetic shield will be reduced thus letting more solar radiation into the earth warming it also. Reducing the CO2 and Methane gases is also paramount.
The extent of arctic sea ice is particularly worrisome because that has a lot to do with the amount of heating we get from the sun.
If we are not causing this should we just fold our hands and let it happen? If a brush fire were heading for your town would you just say, "We didn't start that fire so let's just ignore it."?
It is remarkable how resilient you are in the face of reality.
good post Sam, it is what it is. Personally, I am having trouble with the question "is it too late", right now. That's partly because of the resilience and intransigence of the denial crowd. How can we hope to bring the carbon emissions line on the graph DOWN (which we have not managed to do, let's be honest) when there are so many LOUD voices screaming it's not even a problem? The answer so far has been, you don't bring the line down. In fact, the line is going UP at a steeper rate than it was a few years ago when An inconvenient truth was filmed. We are losing every battle, and the denial squad is winning every battle, and yet they accuse us of ruining their lives. huh?
and the biggest irony of all is that the denial squad accuses US of being closed minded, or refusing to read up on current science, or putting politics ahead of understanding, of allowing our judgements to be corrupted by money (unlike Exxon and Massey Energy?), of spouting false science, of mortgaging our children's futures for no real reason. It reminds me of the Rove tactic of accusing your opponent of the thing you are guilty of and making it stick: John Kerry is the draft dodger and Bush the hero, although Kerry had to duck a few bullets and Bush bravely defended his country during his golf and tequila vacation in the Texas air guard.
But I need to remember that this whole climate change thing is totaly apolitical. yeah, right.
Al Gore's global warming debunked - by kids! April 6, 2008. "If Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth," is suitable for teaching about climatology, then Alfred Hitchcock's film the "The Birds," is a good candidate for teaching ornithology."
World's Top Scientists 'Manmade Warming' Is A Dangerous Lie. December 13, 2007. "In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it."
Hundreds of scientists reject global warming. December 21, 2007. "A new U.S. Senate report documents hundreds of prominent scientists - experts in dozens of fields of study worldwide - who say global warming and cooling is a cycle of nature and cannot legitimately be connected to man's activities.
My God Chris, it is the pot calling the kettle black.
The very people who raped our economy were the people who pushed the hardest to make $100's of Billions off of carbon trading schemes.
Whereas Exxon gave $thousands to mitigate climate change hysteria, mega-corporations like Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch pledged $100's of millions to stoke climate fears and panic.
Oh, can we please, please go back to the good old days when Exxon was the enemy?
Lehman Brothers Close Ties to Gore, Hansen and Carbon Trading
Above image is part of NASA analysis showing global warming from 1900 to 2003, due to increased greenhouse gases. As the study says, a few locations over land show a weak cooling over this period, perhaps a signature of the effects of increasing aerosol particles due to combustion and biomass burning, or a result of changes in land use.
The image shows that tropical rain forests are warming up faster than average, exposing them even more to the extreme events that come with climate change, such as droughts and heatwaves, with the associated risk of wildfires.
This is from Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH). He is the guy who puts together the UAH satellite data sets. He is also the world's formost authority on the most critical piece of the Global Warming Theory, the feedback of the upper troposphere.
Dr. Christy authored sections of the original IPCC report and co-authored sections of subsequent IPCC reports.
While Dr. Christy is a "believer" in the technical sense, he does not share the alarmist views of other believers.
It's happening. It's going to get more extreme, and wide. What do we need to be doing to individually increase our ability to survive it?
what is it with you guys tonight, have you formed a club? Why don't you form a group and entitle it "climate change denial squad".
"Antarctica has a total area of about 14 million square kilometers. Or just about 1 surface station for 1 million square kilometers. For comparison, there are 1221 surface stations in the United States, which has an area of about 10 million square kilometers. This equates to one surface station for every 8000 square kilometers. If the United States had the same station density as Antarctica, there would be only 21 surface stations for the entire continental US."
Just how reliable are temperatures readings that we're being told are coming from the pole with so few stations reporting that's a lot of data smoothing.
Chris, no climatologist has ever claimed that climate change is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. The climate of the earth has been warming up for 500 years. We have only been burning fossil fuels in significant amounts for the last one hundred years. Climatologists claim that the burning of fossil fuel "contributes" to climate change.
And oh, by the way, a climatologist is a meterologist.
why so obtuse. and why am i bothering to argue with you.
Both are atmospheric scientists.
First of all, there is no "climate model". There are approx. thirty models, half of which have been invalidated in the last 10 years. The other half of which are so far down into their error bars as to be useless.
But you also should be willing to admit that people like Christy and Spencer, who have the deepest understanding of the most critical area of global climate change theory, that of feedback in the troposphere are adamantly opposed to the alarmism coming out of the IPCC and environmental activist groups.
Looks like Christy is becoming less of a skeptic as evidence has continued to splinter his "skepticism". However, just as Christy is critical of scientists, who make dire predictions re: the consequences of climate change, many scientists have been critical of the IPCC underestimating those consequences.
The point of my references, btw, is to point to the fact of wide scientific consensus re: the strong probability (90%) of anthropogenic climate change. And even if not underestimated, the projections made by the IPCC are dire enough.
That same falsehood was spread re: environmentalists in the U.S. Actually, the exact opposite was the case. Environmentalists were urging that these tinderboxes be cleaned up.
That point was made by the federal fire chief, battling mega-fires in California.
The Age Of Mega-Fires
__________
"A fire of this size and this intensity in this country would have been extremely rare 15, 20 years they're commonplace these days," Boatner says.
"Ten years ago, if you had a 100,000 acre fire, you were talking about a huge fire. And if we had one or two of those a year, that was probably unusual. Now we talk about 200,000 acre fires like it's just another day at the office. It's been a huge change," he says.
"You know, there are a lot of people who don't believe in climate change," Pelley remarks.
"You won't find them on the fire line in the American West anymore," Tom Boatner says. "'Cause we've had climate change beat into us over the last ten or fifteen years. We know what we’re seeing, and we're dealing with a period of climate, in terms of temperature and humidity and drought that's different than anything people have seen in our lifetimes."
__________
But even if what you claim in Australia is true, it absolutely does not contradict the role of climate change in these mega-fires.
Boatner makes that point above. And Australian drought was the variable that convinced Fox News president/owner, Rupert Murdoch, that climate change is a risk that cannot be ignored.
Chris Field is professor of biology and of environmental Earth system science at Stanford University. Professor Field was a coordinating lead author of the IPCC 2007 report. In 2007, the IPCC and Al Gore were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Field was among 25 IPCC scientists who attended the award ceremony in Oslo, Norway.
In September 2008, Field was elected co-chair of 'IPCC Working Group 2', charged with assessing impacts of climate change on social, economic and natural systems. One of his major responsibilities is to oversee the writing and editing of the 'Working Group 2 Report' for the IPCC fifth assessment, which will be published in 2014.
The above image shows that the tropics are warming up more than average. Chris Field explains that a warming planet will dry out forests in tropical areas making them much more prone to the risk of wildfires.
Field also points at recent studies showing that global warming has reduced the ocean's capacity to soak up excess atmospheric CO2.
Another worry is that Arctic permafrost will thaw, releasing enormous amounts of CO2 and methane gas into the atmosphere. As the above image also shows, accelerated warming takes place in the Arctic. In fact, the Arctic is warming faster than any other part of the globe.
The most critical, short-term concern is the release of CO2 from decaying organic matter that has been frozen for millennia, says Field. "The new estimate of the total amount of carbon that's frozen in permafrost soils is in the order of 1,000 billion tons," Field says. By comparison, the total amount of carbon dioxide that's been released in fossil fuel combustion since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution is around 350 billion tonnes."
Further URLs for Field's address: Yahoo! and Eurekalert.
What's further worrying is a recently-published study showing that emissions from Arctic hot spots could amount to some 0.1 Tg nitrous oxide yr-1, corresponding to 4% of the global warming potential of Arctic methane emissions at present.
Mute point.
Chris (to Greg): "a meteorologist is a weatherman."
Mute point.
For the fifth assessment report, Field said that he and his IPCC colleagues will have access to new research that will allow them to do a better job of assessing the full range of possible climate outcomes. "What have we learned since the fourth assessment? We now know that, without effective action, climate change is going to be larger and more difficult to deal with than we thought. If you look at the set of things that we can do as a society, taking aggressive action on climate seems like one that has the best possibility of a win-win. It can stimulate the economy, allow us to address critical environmental problems, and insure that we leave a sustainable world for our children and grandchildren. Somehow we have to find a way to kick the process into high gear. We really have very little time." [source: Eurekalert].
Troubling. The proverbial "tipping point(s)" appear on the horizon.
Exactly as Gore (the other guy to win that Nobel Peace Prize) said:
__________
Yet when we look at all three of these seemingly intractable challenges at the same time, we can see the common thread running through them, deeply ironic in its simplicity: our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges - the economic, environmental and national security crises.
We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change.
But if we grab hold of that common thread and pull it hard, all of these complex problems begin to unravel and we will find that we're holding the answer to all of them right in our hand.
The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.
Sobering.....
Wow - you're actually right about something. Leave it to you, though, to focus on trivia.
flaming as in red.. now there's a fave color..oh oh..I spelled favorite incorrectly..
this is a great article,Sam..you really did your homework..