IPCC's 2007 report is expected to find that earlier predictions that the warming would be "moderate at worst" can no longer be supported.
Climate scientists issue dire warning
David Adam, environment correspondent
Tuesday February 28, 2006
The Guardian
The Earth's temperature could rise under the impact of global warming to levels far higher than previously predicted, according to the United Nations' team of climate experts.
A draft of the next influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report will tell politicians that scientists are now unable to place a reliable upper limit on how quickly the atmosphere will warm as carbon dioxide levels increase. The report draws together research over the past five years and will be presented to national governments in April and made public next year. It raises the possibility of the Earth's temperature rising well above the ceiling quoted in earlier accounts.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1719608,00.html
oralloy wrote:IPCC's 2007 report is expected to find that earlier predictions that the warming would be "moderate at worst" can no longer be supported.
Quote:Climate scientists issue dire warning
David Adam, environment correspondent
Tuesday February 28, 2006
The Guardian
The Earth's temperature could rise under the impact of global warming to levels far higher than previously predicted, according to the United Nations' team of climate experts.
A draft of the next influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report will tell politicians that scientists are now unable to place a reliable upper limit on how quickly the atmosphere will warm as carbon dioxide levels increase. The report draws together research over the past five years and will be presented to national governments in April and made public next year. It raises the possibility of the Earth's temperature rising well above the ceiling quoted in earlier accounts.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1719608,00.html
I think it's possible that the extent of global climate changes has been exaggerated for ideological reasons.
The Theory at WorkGetting Into the Ice
oralloy wrote:oralloy wrote:IPCC's 2007 report is expected to find that earlier predictions that the warming would be "moderate at worst" can no longer be supported.
Quote:Climate scientists issue dire warning
David Adam, environment correspondent
Tuesday February 28, 2006
The Guardian
The Earth's temperature could rise under the impact of global warming to levels far higher than previously predicted, according to the United Nations' team of climate experts.
A draft of the next influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report will tell politicians that scientists are now unable to place a reliable upper limit on how quickly the atmosphere will warm as carbon dioxide levels increase. The report draws together research over the past five years and will be presented to national governments in April and made public next year. It raises the possibility of the Earth's temperature rising well above the ceiling quoted in earlier accounts.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1719608,00.html
We get it.
You believe in the threat.
Should we go tit for tat in dueling quotes?
Believe it or not there is a fair number of people out there who react to "The Guardian," and "The UN," in the same way you and Walter react to "FOX-News."
And a fair number of folks read "The Guardian", the "UN", AND "Fox News" et al. Hmmm. I wonder who is better informed? Those who read stuff from a lot of different sources? Or those who get most or all of their news from "Salon" or "The Guardian" or "The UN'?
I encourage Mr, XIngu to examine the evidence below and rebut it, if possible.
University of Colorado climatologist Konrad Steffen set up Swiss Camp in 1990 to study the weather along the equilibrium line. As a precaution, Steffen, 54, built the camp on a plywood platform to keep it afloat when the ice turns into summer slush and open lakes before refreezing in the fall.
Even so, Steffen and Zwally often spent days chiseling out tables and chairs had frozen in floodwater into a single block of ice.
Zwally joined his colleagues there on May 8 in the regular spring migration of scientists to the Arctic.
He has been coming to Swiss Camp every year since 1994 and has been studying the polar regions since 1972, monitoring the polar ice through satellite sensors.
Global Warming Doubles Rate Of Ocean Rise
Global ocean levels are rising twice as fast today as they were 150 years ago, and human-induced warming appears to be the culprit, say scientists at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and collaborating institutions.
While the speed at which the ocean is rising - almost two millimeters per year today compared to one millimeter annually for the past several thousand years - may not be fodder for the next disaster movie, it affirms scientific concerns of accelerated global warming.
In an article published in the Nov. 25 issue of the journal Science, Rutgers professor of geological sciences Kenneth G. Miller reports on a new record of sea level change during the past 100 million years based on drilling studies along the New Jersey coast. The findings establish a steady millimeter-per-year rise from 5,000 years ago until about 200 years ago.
In contrast, sea-level measurements since 1850 from tidal gauges and more recently from satellite images, when corrected for land settling along the shoreline, reveal the current two-millimeter annual rise. "Without reliable information on how sea levels had changed before we had our new measures, we couldn't be sure the current rate wasn't happening all along," said Miller. "Now, with solid historical data, we know it is definitely a recent phenomenon.
"The main thing that's changed since the 19th century and the beginning of modern observation has been the widespread increase in fossil fuel use and more greenhouse gases," he added. "Our record therefore provides a new and reliable baseline to use in addressing global warming."
The new sea level record spanning 100 million years of geologic time is the first comprehensive one scientists have produced since a commercial research endeavor in 1987, which, according to Miller, was not fully documented and verifiable.
The findings by Miller's team argue against some widely held tenets of geological science. Miller claims, for example, that ocean heights 100 million years ago and earlier were 150 to 200 meters lower than scientists had previously thought. Changes at these levels can only be caused by the Earth's crust shifting on the ocean floor. Miller's findings, therefore, imply less ocean-crust production than scientists had widely assumed.
During the Late Cretaceous period (the most recent age of dinosaurs), frequent sea-level fluctuations of tens of meters suggest that the Earth was not always ice-free as previously assumed. Ice-volume changes are the only way that sea levels could change at these rates and levels, Miller claims. This suggests small- to medium-sized but short-lived ice sheets in the Antarctic region, and casts doubt whether any of the Earth's warmer eras were fully ice-free.
Miller's team took five 500-meter-deep core samples of sediments onshore along New Jersey's coastline from Cape May to Sandy Hook. The scientists examined the sediment type, fossils, and variations in isotopes, or different forms of the same elements, at different levels in the cores they extracted. Miller also correlated these measurements with others from throughout the world to substantiate the global nature of their record.
The Rutgers study included participants from the New Jersey Geological Survey, the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Western Michigan University, the University of Oregon and Queens College in Flushing, N.Y. The National Science Foundation provided major funding for the study.
Copyright 2005 by Space Daily, Distributed United Press International
Published on Friday, February 17, 2006 by the Independent/UK
Sea Levels Likely to Rise Much Faster Than Was Predicted
by Steve Connor
Global warming is causing the Greenland ice cap to disintegrate far faster than anyone predicted. A study of the region's massive ice sheet warns that sea levels may - as a consequence - rise more dramatically than expected.
Scientists have found that many of the huge glaciers of Greenland are moving at an accelerating rate - dumping twice as much ice into the sea than five years ago - indicating that the ice sheet is undergoing a potentially catastrophic breakup.
The implications of the research are dramatic given Greenland holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by up to 21ft, a disaster scenario that would result in the flooding of some of the world's major population centres, including all of Britain's city ports.
Satellite measurements of the entire land mass of Greenland show that the speed at which the glaciers are moving to the sea has increased significantly over the past 10 years with some glaciers moving three times faster than in the mid-1990s.
Scientists believe that computer models of how the Greenland ice sheet will react to global warming have seriously underestimated the threat posed by sea levels that could rise far more quickly than envisaged.
The latest study, presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in St Louis, shows that rather than just melting relatively slowly, the ice sheet is showing all the signs of a mechanical break-up as glaciers slip ever faster into the ocean, aided by the "lubricant" of melt water forming at their base.
Eric Rignot, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said that computer models used by the UN's International Panel on Climate Change have not adequately taken into account the amount of ice falling into the sea from glacial movements.
Yet the satellite study shows that about two-thirds of the sea-level rise caused by the Greenland ice sheet is due to icebergs breaking off from fast-moving glaciers rather than simply the result of water running off from melting ice.
"In simple terms, the ice sheet is breaking up rather than melting. It's not a surprise in itself but it is a surprise to see the magnitude of the changes. These big glaciers seem to be accelerating, they seem to be going faster and faster to the sea," Dr Rignot said.
"This is not predicted by the current computer models. The fact is the glaciers of Greenland are evolving faster than we thought and the models have to be adjusted to catch up with these observations," he said.
The Greenland ice sheet covers an area of 1.7 million sq km - about the size of Mexico - and, in places, is up to 3km thick. It formed over thousands of years by the gradual accumulation of ice and snow but now its disintegration could occur in decades or centuries.
Over the past 20 years, the air temperature of Greenland has risen by 3C and computer models suggested it would take at least 1,000 years for the ice sheet to melt completely. But the latest study suggests that glaciers moving at an accelerating rate could bring about a much faster change.
"The behaviour of the glaciers that dump ice into the sea is the most important aspect of understanding how an ice sheet will evolve in a changing climate," Dr Rignot said. "It takes a long time to build and melt an ice sheet but glaciers can react quickly to temperature changes.
Climate warming can work in different ways but, generally speaking, if you warm up the ice sheet, the glacier will flow faster," he said.
The ice "balance sheet" of Greenland is complex but - in simple terms - it depends on the amount of snow that falls, the amount of ice that melts as run-off and the amount of ice that falls directly into the sea in the form of icebergs "calving" from moving glaciers.
Satellites show that the glaciers in the south of Greenland are now moving much faster than they were 10 years ago. Scientists estimate that, in 1996, glaciers deposited about 50 cubic km of ice into the sea. In 2005 it had risen to 150 cubic km of ice.
Details of the latest study, published in the journal Science, show that Greenland now accounts for an increase in global sea levels of about 0.5 millimetres per year - compared to a total sea level rise of 3mm per year.
When previous studies of the ice balance are taken into account, the researchers calculated that the overall amount of ice dumped into the sea increased from 90 cubic km in 1996 to 224 cubic km in 2005.
Dr Rignot said that there are now signs that the more northerly glaciers of Greenland are beginning to adopt the pattern of movements seen by those in the south. "The southern half of Greenland is reacting to what we think is climate warming. The northern half is waiting, but I don't think it's going to take long," he said.
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
Climate experts: Gore's movie gets the science right
Gore says he took a lot of care to make sure the science was right in his documentary on global warming.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's top climate scientists are giving "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's documentary on global warming, five stars for accuracy.
The former vice president's movie -- replete with the prospect of a flooded New York City, an inundated Florida, more and nastier hurricanes, worsening droughts, retreating glaciers and disappearing ice sheets -- mostly got the science right, said all 19 climate scientists who had seen the movie or read the book and answered questions from The Associated Press.
The AP contacted more than 100 top climate researchers by e-mail and phone for their opinion. Among those contacted were vocal skeptics of climate change theory. Most scientists had not seen the movie, which is in limited release, or read the book.
But those who have seen it had the same general impression: Gore conveyed the science correctly; the world is getting hotter and it is a manmade catastrophe-in-the-making caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
IPCC. That is, of course, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control and is a very large group of scientists backed by the auspices of the UN and the WHO. I post this only for those who do not know who they are.
Thank You, Foxfyre--your evidence effectively blows Mr. Blatham's newspaper article right out of the water!!
Your comment about Dr. Mann's research are on target since Mann has seen fit to go back only 1000 Years and, as I am sure you know, the Medieval Warm Period began in 700AD.
The left does not question Mann's findings that there is a significant warming period now, BUT THEY SHOULD.
Barnett, T. P. et. al. in Bulletin of the American Metereological Society--"Detection and attribution of recent climate change: a status report" 801(12):2,631-60.
http://ams.allenpress.com
quote:
At present, it is debatable whether there is enough temperature PROXY data to be representative of hemispheric.LET ALONE, GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGES, given the lack of large spatial scale coherence in the data.
end of quote
There is no doubt that there is some rise in temperature but that cannot in itself be taken as a simple indication of overwhelming global warming since we are coming out of a Little Ice Age.
Mann's statistics are vitally flawed since they do not include ocean temperatures, night temperatures, and moreover are almost all based on North American data..and it deserves repitition--Mann's data is based on incomplete surface temperatures and does not refer to satellite temperatures which do not show any appreciable global warming!
Steven J. Milloy is a columnist for Fox News and a paid advocate for Phillip Morris, ExxonMobil and other corporations.
