Climate change even worse than predicted: expert

[NoGOPZone]

Source: AFP via Yahoo! News

It seems the dire warnings about the oncoming devastation wrought by global warming were not dire enough, a top climate scientist warned Saturday.

It has been just over a year since the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a landmark report warning of rising sea levels, expanding deserts, more intense storms and the extinction of up to 30 percent of plant and animal species.

But recent climate studies suggest that report significantly underestimates the potential severity of global warming over the next 100 years, a senior member of the panel warned.

"We now have data showing that from 2000 to 2007, greenhouse gas emissions increased far more rapidly than we expected," said Chris Field, who was a coordinating lead author of the report


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090214/sc_afp/usclimatewarming_20090214150716

[SpiralHawk]

1. "We don't need no steenkin science. Smirk." - Rush 'Draft-Dodger' Limbaugh & Republicons

"We got our beliefs, and they are easy to hang on to when you are getting paid $38 million a year to 'believe' them. Smirk."

- Rush 'Draft-dodging, Drug-Abusing' Limbaugh & Republicon Homelanders

[pleah]

2. Those that refuse to believe will do so even when

sand or water is up to their eyeballs.

[Capt13]

26. It's easy to ignore

historical evidence when you believe the earth is only 6000 years old.

[Towlie]

3. "Tropical forests are essentially inflammable, you couldn't get a fire to burn there if you tried."

"Tropical forests are essentially inflammable," Field said. "You couldn't get a fire to burn there if you tried.

If he was quoted accurately, it looks like Chris Field needs to learn the difference between inflammable and nonflammable. (They are opposites.)

[truthisfreedom]

4. Yes. Inflammable and Flammable have the same meaning.

[wroberts189]

17. Let them dry out a bit.... poof. nt

[Gregorian]

5. And global dimming is counteracting it. See the post in the env. forum.

What we're finding out is that global warming is not only much worse than we thought, but it's even worse than that due to the fact that global dimming is countering it.

When the planes stopped on 9/11, the temperature in the US rose one degree Celsius in three days. That is because the particulates from exhaust were not there for cloud formation. And therefore the sunlight had it's chance to radiate all the way to the surface.

In the last 40 years there has been a decrease in sunlight hitting the earth by as much as 20%. And this is extremely bad news for global warming. Because as we start to see an end to the global dimming, the global warming effects are going to be far far worse.

Happy tourism. Fly and drive everywhere. Because it's killing the planet. In fact, they're claiming that global dimming is what killed a million Africans due to famine. Our exhaust pipes killed them. The explanation is in the documentary in this thread-

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x271149

[wroberts189]

18. thx ... sad

[FedUpWithIt All]

21. Thank you for this. Our attempts to reduce greenhouse gases may in fact cause an increase in temp

for a time. The greenhouse gases will continue to hold in heat, while particle reduction actually lets more of the sun's heat into the atmosphere.

I read about this a few years back and always think of it when we see these articles talking about how everything is moving along faster than expected. There are SO MANY variables and not many of them are in humanity's favor right now.

[Fly by night]

6. Eat the rich -- save the world.

[tclambert]

8. Ugh, so fatty. Loaded with cholesterol.

Maybe if you use a George Foreman grill and let the greasiness run off . . .

[alfredo]

33. That or cool the broth and skim the fat off.

[jwirr]

7. My daughter and friends flew out to Phoenix last week and I told her

to look for signs of drought and global warming! Well it was 40 degrees and raining for four of the days she was there and apparently they have had above average rainfall this year! What exactly are the signs that the southwest is experiencing global warming? I am not a denier but I really messed this one up.

[tclambert]

9. Too local and too small a data set.

The average temperature for an entire year for the entire planet can fluctuate by .25 degrees Centigrade or more. 1999 was about that much colder than 1998. You've got to average it over years to smooth out the fluctuations due to El Ninos, La Ninas, volcanic eruptions, and the solar min-max cycle. Local weather still overwhelms any underlying warming trend. And climate change can mean it rains more in certain locales.

Long-winded way of saying you can't tell on a local basis. Sorry.

[bookluver321]

10. climate change

Well said tclambert.  I believe that climate change is
something that everyone needs to become educated on.  There is
a great book titled, "Agenda for a Sustainable
America," written by John Dernbach.  The book offers a
lot of insight on the subject and gives ideas as to how
everyone can join together and help stop the effects of global
warming. This is a must read book for anyone who cares about
America's future. 

http://www.agendaforasustainableamerica.com/

[Lars39]

14. Welcome to DU, bookluver321

:toast:

[Delphinus]

34. Excellent first post!

Welcome to DU!

[No Elephants]

36. Nice work. Also, there is a difference between "weather" and "climate."

[Capt13]

11. At least if the Polar caps melt

I'll have waterfront property and maybe I can sell it for what I owe.

[rucognizant]

15. Yeh! That's what I thought.

I was going to plant palm trees here in Maine! According to natives, it's been warmer than normal, the past 17 years since I arrived.....BUT, THIS winter, it has gone above freezing only a couple of days in the past 2 months...............leaving me with several feet of snow drifts with an impregnable crust of ice...............WHe I walk up the path to my porch, I have to step down onto it, instead of the one step up that is normal! You can't shovel it, only a pick axe or jackhammer will do.............
The high tide is higher than it used to be...................I think it's going to take out the tall spruce tree, on the other side of the salt marsh.........
I wonder if the melting polar ice is driving the gulf stream further out to sea..........?

[Capt13]

25. Right....

The fresh melt water may effect the salinity of the seawater in the colder regions,slowing down the equatorial currents replacing it. Happened to the Vikings in Greenland when a glacial lake burst open in the north pacific. Froze and starved them off in a generation.

[quidam56]

12. Hannity's America sure ain't My America,

We can't stand anymore of the prosperity in Appalachia. http://www.wisecountyissues.com

[shanti]

13. 2000-2007

interesting timing, eh?

[wroberts189]

16. JEEBUS !! why is it always "worse then predicted" ?

Should the calculus numbers be changed or something ?


Never mind ..probably a dumb question.


btw knr

[defendandprotect]

23. Consider that we've known abou t this since the beginning of the

Industrial Revolution --- the impact on nature, that is.

The Global Warming model since at least 1957, at latest --

Then add 45 years of right wing propaganda denying it led by oil industry --

PLUS, there's a 50 year delay in Global Warming so we're only now feeling the

impact of our human activity up to 1958 -- and lots of stuff happened after that

time. Figuring out how all of this will compound is impossible.

It will be nature as no one has ever experienced it before.

[karynnj]

19. Al Gore has some new very scary slides that include similar information

They were shown at the SFRC hearing -- the hearing really starts around 22 minutes in - Gore's slides start about 54 minutes in (if you want to get straight to them). http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2009/hrg090128p.html

[KakistocracyHater]

20. from 2000 thru 2007 POLLUTION

rose faster than predicted under Bush? You don't say....:sarcasm:

[defendandprotect]

22. Thank you for posting this . . .

I started to do it today and I keep getting in trouble with duplicates so

let it go by. I'm still stumbling around DU trying to figure out archives and how

to check for articles by more than eye-balling.



"Tropical forests are essentially inflammable," Field said. "You couldn't get a fire to burn there if you tried. But if they dry out just a little bit, the result can be very large and destructive wildfires."

Recent studies have also shown that global warming is reducing the ocean's ability to store carbon by altering wind patterns in the Southern Ocean.

"As the Earth warms, it generates faster winds over the oceans surrounding Antarctica," Field explained.

"These winds essentially blow the surface water out of the way, allowing water with higher concentrations of CO2 to rise to the surface. This higher-CO2 water is closer to CO2-saturated, so it takes up less carbon dioxide from the atmosphere."

And this seems a bit of an impossibility . . . !!!

Field is co-chair of the group charged with assessing the impacts of climate change on social, economic and natural systems for the IPCC's fifth assessment due in 2014.

IMO, it's a question whether Peak Oil/Gas or Global Warming is going to turn us upside down first!

[Lost in CT]

27. "Tropical forests are essentially inflammable," Field said. "You couldn't get a fire to burn there i

Inflammable??? Someone needs a dictionary stat.

[skooooo]

24. Those ice storms that hit Kentucky, Indiana, etc...

We NEVER saw anything like that when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. Can't tell me something's hasn't changed.

[Overseas]

28. Let's not forget Exxon's contribution to the discussion

http://www.truthout.org/article/exxon-mobil-cultivates-global-warming-doubt

Thanks in part to their campaigns, we've had lots of global warming deniers on US mass media, and are still strongly inclined to seek out ways to pretend things will just work themselves out.

TV news chat shows with Fake Fairness have put deniers on to "balance out" their discussions of climate change. Fake Fairness (more Republican "voluntary compliance") pretends that TV news talk needs to be "balanced" within each program, which it never did. ( http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0212-03.htm ) The post-Reagan voluntary compliance broadcasters pretend that balance means the 99% of climate scientists who believe man's activities have negatively influenced our climate to be countered one-to-one by someone from the 1% fringe who pretend what we have seen all around us is not occurring, or that global warming is still occurring at natural levels and somehow nature will just take care of things. Hey, we could get hit by an asteroid! Hey, the universe is expanding so we're gonna get pretty cool in a billion years!

We could have learned so much more by now if they'd balanced their shows by having scientists who understood global climate change discussing divergent opinions regarding how best to reduce carbon emissions. I wish we had been hearing much more about how to address climate issues fairly around the globe, while some countries are still working hard to reach the level of comfort we have established for ourselves in industrialized nations with our private automobiles, dishwashers and TV on our mobile phones.

If reducing our consumption of oil had been put on a national security status instead of making our acquisition of the remainder of that limited resource a matter to cook up reasons to go to war over, we would be in a much better position today. We'd have lots of new enterprises employing millions of people. But instead of funding alternative energy, nationwide mass transit and conservation technologies as a matter of long-term national security, the Bush gang decided to falsify reasons to invade oil-rich Iraq, and left reducing consumption of foreign oil to their precious voluntary compliance. "Let the market decide"-- with a little help from a $650 billion (plus Secret-Billions off budget) war of choice.

[defendandprotect]

30. When the country wakes up to what you are saying, the oil industry will be nationalized . . .

and we will know what's really going on, but it will be too late.

The Royal Academy of Science called ExxonMobil to accountability a year or two

ago. Other oil companies were in the campaign with them until they dropped out

4-5 years ago. ExxonMobil marches on with distortion and lies and misinformation.

We should nationalize the oil industry.

PLUS, we also have to come to terms with peak oil/peak gas and I see no signs of that

happening, either.

[dana_b]

29. If we think the economy is bad now..

wait until there is global drought, famine and rising sea waters.
Top three issues today: War, economy and climate change. If we don't do something serious within Obama's administration(s), we're not just screwed (which we are no matter what), we're completely f***ed!
BTW, those are scientific terms. ;)

[defendandprotect]

31. True . . . and, in other words, capitalism is suicidal -- profits before planet . . .

And they're taking us all with them . . . !!!

[alfredo]

32. Curse bush for muzzling scientist who were trying to warn us.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

35. This stinkin' economy presents the perfect opportunity to change...

We need to create jobs anyway. Why create them primarily in sectors that are detrimental to the health of the planet?

We can restore the economy and the environment by creating all kinds of green jobs, from executive positions to research and development to manufacturing assembly lines. And it wouldn't cost any more than it would to save those industries that are now crumbling as a result of monetary myopia.

[Turborama]

37. Exactly

These are some of the key reasons why I supported Obama.

[Turborama]

38. Re: "You couldn't get a fire to burn there if you tried" - this guy hasn't heard of Borneo?

http://www.google.com/search?q=borneo+forest+fires&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&ie=utf8&oe=utf8">Forest fires on Borneo (most of them are being deliberately burnt to clear the way for palm oil plantations but that's a whole other story)

1998


2006