Topic: Recent global warming news - may be too late

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World 'unlikely to stop global warming reaching critical levels'
World 'unlikely to stop global warming reaching critical levels'

The world is unlikely to stop global warming rising above critical levels claim scientists in studies that calculate we could exceed safe emission targets in under 20 years.
 
By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
Last Updated: 9:09PM BST 29 Apr 2009

Two studies on climate change have concluded that rises in global temperatures are unlikely to remain below a critical threshold deemed by the world's governments to be safe.

Policy-makers have adopted a goal of keeping the average global rise in surface temperatures to no more than 3.6F (2C) above pre-industrial revolution levels.

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Melting permafrost could trigger 'unstoppable' climate changeThis will mean stabilising CO2 emissions immediately and then substantially after 2015 to avoid the kind of levels in the atmosphere which will accelerate global warming.

But two studies from Oxford University and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research, published in Nature, claim that current levels of carbon emission – actually increasing at three per cent a year – will mean the temperature rise will be exceeded. There is now only a 50 per cent chance of avoiding it even if drastic measures are taken.

Rises above 3.6F (2C) are expected to lead to deforestation, flooding and droughts across the world.

Dr Vicky Pope, Head of Climate Change Advice at the Met Office, said: "Even with drastic cuts in emissions in the next 10 years, our results project that there will only be around a 50 per cent chance of keeping global temperatures rises below 3.6F (2 C).

"This idealised emissions scenario is based on emissions peaking in 2015 and quickly changing from an increase of 2–3 per cent per year to a decrease of 3 per cent per year. For every 10 years we delay action another 0.9F (0.5C) will be added to the most likely temperature rise."

Meanwhile a separate study by the UK Energy Research Centre found meeting the target to cut greenhouse emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 will cost around £17 billion a year, or around £700 on the average electricity bill by 2050.

However, if people object to onshore wind farms and nuclear power stations, it will cost £20 billion a year, as more expensive technologies will have to be used, adding £800 to the electricity bill.

Dr Jeanette Whitaker, of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and one of the report's authors, called it the "Nimby scenario", where people object to such projects located in their own area but not to siting them elsewhere. "It is valid to object to wind farms or nuclear power stations," she said. "But if you object to technology, you will have to be prepared to either pay more for your electricity or make lifestyle changes to reduce energy use."

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Also just posted today:

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html#

Global Warming

Saturday, May 2, 2009

On Feb. 2, 2007, the United Nations scientific panel studying climate change declared that the evidence of a warming trend is "unequivocal," and that human activity has "very likely" been the driving force in that change over the last 50 years. The last report by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in 2001, had found that humanity had "likely" played a role.

The addition of that single word "very" did more than reflect mounting scientific evidence that the release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from smokestacks, tailpipes and burning forests has played a central role in raising the average surface temperature of the earth by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1900. It also added new momentum to a debate that now seems centered less over whether humans are warming the planet, but instead over what to do about it. In recent months, business groups have banded together to make unprecedented calls for federal regulation of greenhouse gases. The subject had a red-carpet moment when former Vice President Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," was awarded an Oscar; and the Supreme Court made its first global warming-related decision, ruling 5 to 4 that the Environmental Protection Agency had not justified its position that it was not authorized to regulate carbon dioxide.

The greenhouse effect has been part of the earth's workings since its earliest days. Gases like carbon dioxide and methane allow sunlight to reach the earth, but prevent some of the resulting heat from radiating back out into space. Without the greenhouse effect, the planet would never have warmed enough to allow life to form. But as ever larger amounts of carbon dioxide have been released along with the development of industrial economies, the atmosphere has grown warmer at an accelerating rate: Since 1970, temperatures have gone up at nearly three times the average for the 20th century.

The latest report from the climate panel predicted that the global climate is likely to rise between 3.5 and 8 degrees Fahrenheit if the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere reaches twice the level of 1750. By 2100, sea levels are likely to rise between 7 to 23 inches, it said, and the changes now underway will continue for centuries to come.