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

A top scientist just announced that earth is beyond the tipping point. The warming is irreversible, and it will be cataclysmic. However, proper action may slow this down.

Proper action includes rocketing Al Gore to the sun.

H2O MAN wrote:

Proper action includes rocketing Al Gore to the sun.

Where has Al Gore been lately? I haven't noticed him much. Did he have the concert in the Arctic and melt some more of the ice there?

Re: farmerman (Post 3547468)
farmerman wrote:

Quote:

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.

I was thinking the same thing. I keep bringing up the fact that the climate has been warming for almost 60k years and is probably heading for a rapid flip-flop into cold cold cold, but nobody seems interested in the data (or they ignore the long term data and only argue about the last few meaningless centuries). The discussion always seems to turn into a conservative versus liberal argument. I don't think people are really interested in "climate change", I think they are interested in "ideology change".

45.7C or 115Fahrenheidt yesterday, probably the same today

Small changes in global average temperature have a major impact on nature. The global average temperature during the last Ice Age 10 to 20,000 years ago, which created vast areas under ice and glaciers, was only 8"10°C cooler than today (Hadley Centre, 1999).

Similarly, we can expect increases in the global average temperature of a few degrees will have dramatic changes on local environments and climatic conditions.

By 2030, average annual temperatures in Australia will be between 0.4 " 2.0°C higher than in 1990, and by 2070 it will be between 1 " 6°C warmer (CSIRO 2001). These are dramatic changes, and they are predicted to occur within our lifetimes

Throughout the world, just a few of the changes that are occurring now include:


22 of 35 non-migratory European butterfly species have shifted northwards by 35 " 240 km this century (Hughes 2000).


The only two vascular plant species in Antarctica have increased in numbers between 1964 and 1990 when there have been warmer summers and milder winters (Hughes 2000).


Changes in migration patterns of birds have been noted in Europe, North America and Latin America (IPCCb 2001).


Populations of Adelies Penguins, which inhabit pack ice, have decreased by 22 percent as sea ice has declined; Chinstrap Penguins, which prefer open water, have increased by more than 400 percent (IPCCb 2001).


The massive climate-related coral bleaching event of 1998 destroyed about 16 percent of coral reefs of the world in 9 months (Wilkinson, 2000).


A rise in surface sea temperatures of 0.8°C over 42 years was accompanied by a decline in zooplankton abundance of 70 per cent over 20 years, and further up the food chain, a decline in Sooty Shearwater abundance by 90 per cent (more than 4 million birds) (Hughes, 2000).

International scientific consensus agrees that increasing levels of man-made greenhouse gases are leading to global climate change. Possible consequences of climate change include rising temperatures, changing sea levels, and impacts on global weather. These changes could have serious impacts on the world's organisms and on the lives of millions of people, especially those living in areas vulnerable to extreme natural conditions such as flooding and drought.

Misleading arguments 2. Many scientists do not think that climate change is a problem.
Some scientists have signed petitions stating that climate change is not a problem.


There are some differences of opinion among scientists about some of the details of climate change
and the contribution of human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels. Researchers continue to
collect more data about climate change and to investigate different explanations for the evidence.
However, the overwhelming majority of scientists who work on climate change agree on the main
points, even if there is still some uncertainty about particular aspects, such as how the concentration of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will change in the future.
In the journal Science in 2004, Oreskes published the results of a survey of 928 papers on climate
change published in peer-reviewed journals between 1993 and 2003. She found that three-quarters of
the papers either explicitly or implicitly accepted the view expressed in the IPCC 2001 report that
human activities have had a major impact on climate change in the last 50 years, and none rejected it.
There are some individuals and organisations, some of which are funded by the US oil industry, that
seek to undermine the science of climate change and the work of the IPCC. They appear motivated in
their arguments by opposition to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and
the Kyoto Protocol, which seek urgent action to tackle climate change through a reduction in
greenhouse gas emissions.