Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

The IPCC isn't the last word. It doesn't do its own research. It gathers the scientists who do the actual research and the experts in the fields to put together a report on what that research means. The research keeps coming, and it all points in the same direction. 3 recent papers published in "Science" and "Nature" say the IPCC was too conservative (for example, the IPCC couldn't set a range on some likely contribution to rise, so just left it out of the calculation). They say sea level rise of 0.8 to 2.0 meters is more realistic. That's about 30 inches, at the low end, to about 6 1/2 feet at the high end. The low end would flood more than 10,000 square miles of the US. Consider that more than half the world's population lives within 50 miles of a coast. Consider how many of the world's major cities are at sea level (because, after all they are seaports). Start with Portland, Boston, New York, D.C. (some might consider that small loss), Charleston, Miami, New Orleans (isn't that below sea level), Houston, San Diego, L.A., San Francisco, Portland, Seattle. A couple feet of rise and a huge part of our infrastructure and population is in danger.

Read your original post, genoves. If you're talking about the 90s, then you have to be comparing the FAR to the SAR (the 1997 one). The TAR and the FAR generally agree. I'm not about to go trying to find what the SAR said.

The best case scenario is about a foot rise (median estimate). For that best case scenario to come to pass, there have to be very large reductions in CO2 emissions--not likely if people like you, genoves, keep impeding things. Their worst case scenario envisions a rise of about 17 inches (all of their scenarios omit ice sheet flow, which recent research in Greenland indicates is significantly larger factor than had been previously known(you've got to find a way to figure out what's going on underneath glaciers to tell what it is, and that hasn't been easy)), and as I have indicated there's increasing evidence that even those estimates are conservative.

The IPCC isn't the last word? Well, who is?

You are so ignorant. The IPCC is the INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE. Your bull about the "research keeps coming" is ridiculous since you don't tell what the research is. Like a moron, you cite 3 papers and do not give their names or where I could find them. I, instead printed out the findings of the IPCC.

Who said that the IPCC could not set a range on some likely contribution to rise, so they just left it out of the calculation? Did you make that u
The projected temperature increase for a range of stabilization scenarios (the coloured bands). The black line in middle of the shaded area indicates 'best estimates'; the red and the blue lines the likely limits. From the work of Working Group III.Model projections are made based on an analysis of various computer climate models running within different SRES scenarios. As a result, predictions for the 21st century are as shown below.

Surface air warming in the 21st century:
Best estimate for a "low scenario"[9] is 1.8 °C with a likely range of 1.1 to 2.9 °C (3.2 °F with a likely range of 2.0 to 5.2 °F)
Best estimate for a "high scenario"[10] is 4.0 °C with a likely range of 2.4 to 6.4 °C (7.2 °F with a likely range of 4.3 to 11.5 °F)
A temperature rise of about 0.1 °C per decade would be expected for the next two decades, even if greenhouse gas and aerosol concentrations were kept at year 2000 levels.
A temperature rise of about 0.2 °C per decade is projected for the next two decades for all SRES scenarios.
Confidence in these near-term projections is strengthened because of the agreement between past model projections and actual observed temperature increases.
Based on multiple models that all exclude ice sheet flow due to a lack of basis in published literature,[11] it is estimated that sea level rise will be:
in a low scenario[9] 18 to 38 cm (7 to 15 inches)
in a high scenario[10] 26 to 59 cm (10 to 23 inches)
It is very likely that there will be an increase in frequency of warm spells, heat waves and events of heavy rainfall.
It is likely that there will be an increase in areas affected by droughts, intensity of tropical cyclones (which include hurricanes and typhoons) and the occurrence of extreme high tides.
"Sea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and Antarctic … In some projections, Arctic late-summer sea ice disappears almost entirely by the latter part of the 21st century."
Scenario-specific projections are based on analysis of multiple runs by multiple climate models, using the various SRES Scenarios. "Low scenario" refers to B1, the most optimistic scenario family. "High scenario" refers to A1FI, the most pessimistic scenario family.


[edit] Temperature and sea level rise for each SRES scenario family
There are six families of SRES Scenarios, and AR4 provides projected temperature and sea level rises for each scenario family.

Scenario B1
Best estimate temperature rise of 1.8 °C with a likely range of 1.1 to 2.9 °C (3.2 °F with a likely range of 2.0 to 5.2 °F)
Sea level rise likely range [18 to 38 cm] (7 to 15 inches)
Scenario A1T
Best estimate temperature rise of 2.4 °C with a likely range of 1.4 to 3.8 °C (4.3 °F with a likely range of 2.5 to 6.8 °F)
Sea level rise likely range [20 to 45 cm] (8 to 18 inches)
Scenario B2
Best estimate temperature rise of 2.4 °C with a likely range of 1.4 to 3.8 °C (4.3 °F with a likely range of 2.5 to 6.8 °F)
Sea level rise likely range [20 to 43 cm] (8 to 17 inches)
Scenario A1B
Best estimate temperature rise of 2.8 °C with a likely range of 1.7 to 4.4 °C (5.0 °F with a likely range of 3.1 to 7.9 °F)
Sea level rise likely range [21 to 48 cm] (8 to 19 inches)
Scenario A2
Best estimate temperature rise of 3.4 °C with a likely range of 2.0 to 5.4 °C (6.1 °F with a likely range of 3.6 to 9.7 °F)
Sea level rise likely range [23 to 51 cm] (9 to 20 inches)
Scenario A1FI
Best estimate temperature rise of 4.0 °C with a likely range of 2.4 to 6.4 °C (7.2 °F with a likely range of 4.3 to 11.5 °F)
Sea level rise likely range [26 to 59 cm] (10 to 23 inches)

You are supremely ignorant, Monterey Jack. You give no links. I don't believe a word you say. Sources please.

Please no bull about "recent research in Greenland indicate is significantly larger factor that had been previously known" Read that . It makes no sense.

Evidence that even those estimates are conservative??????

What evidence.

Read the following:



[edit] Ice, snow, permafrost, rain, and the oceans
The SPM documents increases in wind intensity, decline of permafrost coverage, and increases of both drought and heavy precipitation events. Additionally:

"Mountain glaciers and snow cover have declined on average in both hemispheres."
Losses from the land-based ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica have very likely (>90%) contributed to sea level rise between 1993 and 2003.
Ocean warming causes seawater to expand, which contributes to sea level rising.
Sea level rose at an average rate of about 1.8 mm/year during the years 1961-2003. The rise in sea level during 1993-2003 was at an average rate of 3.1 mm/year. It is not clear whether this is a long-term trend or just variability.
Antarctic sea ice shows no significant overall trend, consistent with a lack of warming in that region.

*********************************************************

Now, rebut that with SOURCES if you can. Please stop spouting inananties which are not documented.

Can't you read? The IPCC estimate is NOT A COUPLE OF FEET RISE BY 2100. It is , as I have said repeatedly, a foot over the next 90 years. Exactly WHICH papers in Science and Nature are you talking about? Have you read the papers in Geophysical Research Letters and Geographical Review>

Cut the bull and give citations so I can tell whether you know what you are talking about. I posted the IPCC findings. YOU POSTED N O T H I N G!

Sorry, I thought I'd provided the link, but looking back I think I was going to put it at the end of the post and then I went off on somewhat of a tangent and forgot to put it in. It wasn't still in my memo pad, so this isn't it, but it deals with a couple of the same papers and reaches similar conclusions:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/09/how-much-will-sea-level-rise/#more-598

Thank you for the link- The crucial paragraph is below-

We were going to leave it at that, but we've just seen the initial media coverage where this result is being spun as a downgrading of predictions! (exemplified by this Reuters piece, drawing mainly from the U. Colorado press release). This is completely backwards. We stress that no-one (and we mean no-one) has published an informed estimate of more than 2 meters of sea level rise by 2100. Tellingly, the statement in the paper that suggests otherwise has no reference.

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Again, if you read the IPCC 2007 report, you will find that the WORST CASE scenario for sea rise is 10 to 20 inches and the low scenario 7 to 13.

As I have already pointed out, the sea level rise since 1860 has been the rise of about a foot( source--"Cool it" by Bjorn Lomborg---P. 60)

Your source says that NO ONE AND WE MEAN NO ONE HAS PUBLISHED AN INFORMED ESTIMATE OF MORE THAN 2 METERS OF SEA LEVEL RISE BY 2100. 2 m e t e r s i s c l e a r l y a WORST CASE SCENARIO.

I'll stick with the UN IPCC MEDIAN ESTIMATE OF ONE FOOT OVER THE REST OF THE CENTURY.

In the meantime, we will find out more about what the nations will agree on in December, will we not? And if we discover that China and India will not agree to lower emissions, the articles you cite can only be profitably used as toilet paper.

What I posted is not what you read. Read it again. The low scenario in the IPCC is about a foot. The high scenario median is about a foot and a half. Which scenario happens depends on a number of factors, the major one being the CO2 emissions we continue to produce. There is no way to tell now what humans do in the next century, whether we'll cut CO2 production or increase it and by what amount. That's why the IPCC produces a range of scenarios. So when you say a foot, genoves, you're only dealing with one of the possibilities, and, judging from current consumption the least likely one. Follow the link. Even a foot and a half may be conservative.

And try this, which is consonant with the recently observed rapid increase in melting in the Greenland ice sheet. They suggest 1.6-4.5 feet (which, with the usual two sigma interval, would suggest a median rise of about 3 feet)
http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/SLR_fact_sheet_020207.pdf

IPCC worst case is 10 to 23 inches, not 10 to 20. Which puts the median at 16.5, not 15. And Greenland's melting faster than anyone thought.

Which scenario happens depends on a number of factors--you are correct.

The major one being the co2 emissions WE??? continue to produce.

Who is WE? THE USA? Are you aware that C hina has now become the major producer of Co2.

I will restate your response more accurately.

THE MAJOR ONE BEING THE CO2 EMISSIONS CHINA AND INDIA CONTINUE TO PRODUCE.

I do not think you are aware that the US Senate rejected the Kyoto Protocol by the stunning vote of 98-1 in 1997 when Slick Willie was president. They rejected it because it did not include China and India. China and India, at that time, begged off of having to set co2 emission targets since it was not FAIR to include DEVELOPING COUNTRIES.

And, as long as we are talking about possiblities, it is possible that the scientists have missed solar effects as a factor. No one, I think, would say that Solar effects are the only source of global warming but it is possible, indeed, according to many studies, probable, that solar effects are PART of the cause.

Sources on request!!

the worst case but the best case is 7 to 13. and Greenland is melting faster than we thought? Source?

<sigh> How many times do we have to go through the basics. Here's just one citation, re Greenland
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gtpmTPNQONWGgmgxaUoJVxAc_3kQ

Yes, genoves, thank you for restating what has already been stated ad nauseam in the course of this thread. The IPCC has dealt with solar effects since at least the SAR. The TAR suggested that solar variabiliiy could account for up to 30% of warming. The FAR on the basis of longer satellite observation of TSI (Total Solar Irradiance) lowered that figure, but it's no longer at the tip of my tongue. Last year was the solar minimum, which is the figure used to see if there are changes in TSI. Of the two measure s of TSI, PMOD, the more generally accepted, showed a slight decrease in TSI over the almost three solar cycles we've had accurate satellite data, which suggests that it cannot have been a major influence on the last three decades of rising temperature. The other measurement, ACRIM, which is more controversial, lowered its already very small increase in TSI by a factor of four (and that was based on data from mid 2008 which was not the very minimum--the last i checked several months ago they still hadn't done a calculation based on the absolute min).

I'm going to sleep. We've gone thru these many times. If you're interested, google "solar variability" (try wikipedia), PMOD and ACRIM.

But there is a possiblity that the solar effect is present even in a small amount. Of c ourse, we will go around and around on this but I promise you that if China and India do not go along with considerable reduction targets to be set in December 2009, I will suggest that all of the articles by the prophets of disaster will only be good to be used as toilet paper.

oh, hell, my computer's doing its auto update thing, which slows everything else to a crawl. I'm outta here. The Max Planck Institute has an interesting graphic which shows solar variability has a significant correlation with temperature (based largely on proxies, to be sure, not actual data), up until the middle of the last century, when it starts being unable to account for the rise in temperature, and that includes the period, from the 70s on when we have actual data on solar output, rather than proxy data), I'll get it when the stupid machine speeeds up again.

B y the way. Monterey Jack, we haven't even touched the cost-benefit factor.

How much will it cost the countries of the world to reduce the temperature in 2100 by l degree Celsius?

How many jobs will be lost because of the technological changes needed to meet the GW challenge?

Since Economics's basic thrust has to do with the ALLOCATION OF L I M I T E D RESOURCES, do we know that we will be using our money wisely if we spend trillions of dollars until 2100 to reduce the temperature by 1 degree?

Are there better ways to spend our money? Could we put up with an additional degree of warmth in ninety years and instead utilize SOME of the money to do some really important things like conquer the killer Malaria in many of the world's countries?

We must make choices--We cannot make choices based on hysteria, politics, or scientific careers.

We have no choice but putting up with additional warming, since the CO2 we've already put in the atmosphere is going to stay there for up to a century and heat us up, even if we don't burn another drop of fossil fuel from this day forward. The question is, do we stick with "simmer" or do we go all the way to "charbroil".

You might consider the point so often made and so often disregarded by contrarians, that many of the same things that we can do right now to alleviate some of the effects of global warming are also the same things that many across the political spectrum, including even our finally-departed-ex-president, have said we should do to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. And they are the same things that the private economy did in the recent run up in oil prices, because they made economic sense to do.

The technology exists now to raise CAFE standards to at least the mid 30mpg range. Japanese cars produced now already meet that level. Around 40mpg is doable. Detroit whines and pisses and moans. That's why Toyota has beaten out GM as the largest carmaker in the world.

As we saw, even without considering global warming, oil recently went up to, what, about $140 a barrel, I think, at the top. That was a combination of speculation, hedging price raises with futures, and rising demand from other economies. It was a bubble, but you'd be an idiot to think it's not where we're going inevitably. Somewhere around $70 a barrel there was a huge surge of private investment in CURRENTLY AVAILABLE ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGIES, because at that point they became cost-effective. These included solar farms and individual solar cell technologies, wind turbines (Germany currently gets about 11% of its energy from wind, as we discussed a hundred or so pages back), ethanol production (not corn ethanol, that's a boondoggle to buy agribusiness votes), and alternative transportation. The price of oil dropped, and some of that investment got put on hold. But oil is inevitably going back up--we've pumped most of the sweet stuff already, and the reserves are going to be harder and more expensive to extract, to the point where those alternatives again are going to look good (and that, again, is with CURRENT TECHNOLOGY).

Nova on PBS is running an instructive program this week on the Governator's plans for California to lead in reducing reliance on imported oil, and to lead in energy independence and alternative energy. He's looked at the numbers and thinks that it's going to boost the California economy and California jobs, because they'll be at the forefront of the technology that the world is going to need, not just because of global warming but because of the increasing cost of energy in general, and what we're going to have to do to meet future needs. In other words, not a net job loss but a job gain and an increase in bucks coming in to American business, if we do it right. You might want to watch it, genoves.

Im somehow saddened how this has turned into a politicized issue, when its a scientific one that is either based upon data or not. The most compelling piece of data that supports a natural climate change cycle is the fact thatCO2 seems to be a LAGGING indicator, not a leading one.