MIT Projections - Odds Excellent For Global Temperature Rise Of 5C+ In Absence Of Action

[hatrack]

New research from MIT scientists shows that in the absence of stringent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, 21st century climate change may be far more significant than some previous climate assessments had indicated.

The new findings, released this month by MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, showed significantly increased odds that by the end of the century warming would be on the high end of the scale for a so-called "no policy scenario" as compared with similar studies completed just six years ago. The main culprits: the cycling of heat and carbon dioxide in the climate system are now better understood and projections of future greenhouse gas emissions have increased.

The results also showed that even if nations were to act quickly to reduce emissions, it is more likely that warming would be greater than previous studies had shown. However, the increase in projected temperatures under the "policy scenario" was not as large as for the no policy scenario.

The modeling experiments are not meant to provide precise forecasts of future temperature changes, but rather to serve as what one related MIT study calls "thought experiments" to help policymakers and the public understand how decisions regarding emissions reductions may affect the magnitude of climate change. They show how human activities are loading the dice in favor of a warming climate, and cast doubt on the feasibility of limiting temperature increases to the lower range of what the influential U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected in its most recent assessment report in 2007.

EDIT

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2009/02/new_research_from_mit_scientis.html

[tridim]

1. GOP reaction: NO!

[opihimoimoi]

2. The Party of SELFISHNESS and GREED:: They think in Short Term MODE

Long Term Planning would preclude the GOP...they being short termers

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Report: Human activity fuels global warming

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/climate.html

Report: Human activity fuels global warming

Anne Trafton, News Office
February 2, 2007

Today's release of a widely anticipated international report on global warming coincides with a growing clamor within the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent the potentially devastating consequences of global climate change.

"There's more interest in this now than at any time in the last 20 years," says Ronald Prinn, TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT, who was a lead author of the report issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The report issued today in Paris, a 21-page summary of a much longer study on the science behind climate change, concludes there is a greater than 90 percent chance that greenhouse gases from human activity are responsible for most of the steadily rising average global temperatures observed in the past 50 years.

…

• For the first time, the IPCC has placed odds on the accuracy of its climate predictions: The report offers several different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios and, for each one, predicts the likelihood of a certain temperature increase--for example, a two-thirds chance that global temperatures will rise 2.4 to 6.4 degrees Celsius for one high-emissions scenario.

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