NO COOLING IN SIGHT: Even if greenhouse gas emissions get curtailed, the globe might not reverse warming that's already started.
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BOULDER – Drastic, economy-changing cuts to greenhouse gas emissions will spare the planet half the trauma expected over the next century as the Earth warms.
And that's the good news.
Because failure to significantly curb these planet-warming gases will truly transform our world in less than 100 years.
A new study to be published by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research finds that a 70 percent cut in emissions should stabilize temperatures at a mark not too much higher than today.
Such a cut, most experts agree, would require vast retooling of a fossil-fuel-based economy and an unprecedented level of global cooperation.
But that major effort to slash emissions, the scientists warn, won't stop global warming. The question confronting politicians throughout the world, in other words, is not whether they want the planet to warm: It is to what degree.
"We can no longer avoid significant warming during this century," NCAR scientist Warren Washington, the lead author, said in a statement. But "we could stabilize the threat of climate change and avoid catastrophe."
The study, employing the latest-generation computer models, will be published next week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Mitigating emissions, the authors reported, blunts projected climate impacts and avoids the most dangerous potential impacts of climate disruption:
*The late-summer polar ice cap, already at historic lows today, would shrink only another quarter and hold steady by century's end, instead of melting by more than three-quarters with no let-up in sight.
*Arctic warming is potentially cut in half, stabilizing the northern Bering Sea and reducing impacts on commercial and subsistence fisheries.
*Regional heat wave intensity also drops by half, with the greatest reduction occurring over the western United States, Canada and most of Europe, Russia and Northern Africa.
*Flooding risk drops in half for the western tropical Pacific, Northeast United States and Canada, eastern Asia and South America.
But the emissions slash will not stem the tide: Global average temperatures would still rise by nearly 1º F, about what scientists attribute to date from industrial emissions since 1900.
Sea levels would creep up nearly six inches as a result of that extra heat, with any additional rise due to melting ice sheets unaccounted for in the study's calculations. And they would keep rising beyond 2100, given the oceans' thermal inertia.
"Note that despite a 70 percent reduction in emissions over the 21st century," the authors write, "there is virtually no cooling."
And while the cut would stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, it holds them at about 450 parts-per-million, according to the study. That's nearly 20 percent higher than today's concentrations and at or even above a threshold many scientists fear will trigger a series of cascading and transformative catastrophes.
Pre-industrial carbon dioxide levels were 284 ppm. Unchecked, emissions are on track to reach 750 ppm by 2100. Scientists don't even know what that would look like: Assumptions used by the computer models were drawn up before recent large emission increases from China and elsewhere, leaving scientists to conclude that their "business-as-usual" benchmark is a conservative estimate for what might actually happen.
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30 Comments
Add CommentAnother BS article written as if this is the gospel - which it is not! This magazine is very biased and slanted. Not everyone buys this crapt, I repeat not everyone buys what you are selling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe deniers are very vocal. Science isn't gospel. It's about levels of certainty. Deniers amplify the uncertainty to turn a reasonable projection into a wild guess. The science keeps getting checked and rechecked. If one thing it's become more certain not less. They'll only believe global warming is real when DC and NYC are underwater. Same thing happened during the first Great Depression. No one did anything about the Dust Bowl until a dust storm blew into DC while Congress was in session. Goodbye Florida. It was nice to know you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegardless of the accuracy of what experts say when describing global warming, it isn't hard to see that the way we are raping our planet, we are headed for global disaster. If it isn't in the CO2 emissions, it's in the water we are polluting, the chemicals we are ingesting into our bodies, the animals we are killing off due to our negligence. You can easily see the logic and examples of how interconnected everything is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople are now looking back to the time when we lived in harmony with nature and realizing just how wise a course that was, instead of trying to control it.
This is a benefit to every human on this planet. By disregarding warnings and obvious trends, we endanger the lives of everyone, including our own children.
I'm rather interested in the opinions of people who have spent their lives in a field of study that pertains to the topics at hand.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegardless of the accuracy of what experts say when describing global warming, it isn't hard to see that the way we are raping our planet, we are headed for global disaster. If it isn't in the CO2 emissions, it's in the water we are polluting, the chemicals we are ingesting into our bodies, the animals we are killing off due to our negligence. You can easily see the logic and examples of how interconnected everything is.
People are now looking back to the time when we lived in harmony with nature and realizing just how wise a course that was, instead of trying to control it.
This is a benefit to every human on this planet. By disregarding warnings and obvious trends, we endanger the lives of everyone, including our own children.
"Even Deep Cuts in Greenhouse Gas Emissions Will Not Stop Global Warming." No kidding. Only the sun can do that, since the sun caused recent global warming in the first place. More politically motivated policy prattle from SciAm. Yawnnnnn.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGlobal Warming will come. But the experts fail to mention some things. 1) Why is Mars warming at a higher rate then Earth? Could we be experiencing Solar warming because the sun is getting hotter? 2) When do the expect the current 3 year trend of Global Cooling to stop?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMars is warming at a higher rate than earth because of fluctuations in its albedo.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGlobal cooling? I guess when the 3 year trend of glaciers disappearing and ice caps melting stops.
If you look at the most recent GISS data, you'll see March 2009 is the coldest March since 2000, and only 0.04 degrees warmer than March 1981. Wow. 0.04 Degrees in 28 years. How will we survive? GISS data here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjb1299,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease look up "signal to noise" ... thank you. Weather is a year to year process. Climate is measured in decades.
warmcconnell,
The sun is the most heavily studied body in the entire universe besides the Earth. We know exactly how much output there is and the IPCC report includes it's warming influence in it's report. ... thank you.
I'm absolutely amazed at how skeptics can find one sliver of data and somehow, without any study or supporting data, come to a conclusion that they believe debunks the world scientific community. We have now entered a phase where directly observable events are now verifying predictions made by climate experts decades ago.
Wake up, this isn't a political scheme cooked up by Al Gore. This has been seen coming by scientists for decades.
Riiight. Climate is measured in decades, so after 4, we're able to predict the next 5. Uh-huh.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNews flash for you. Climate is measured in CENTURIES, not decades.
If I understand the implications of this article, the biosphere is able to absorb only 30% of the emissions we're currently putting out. (This is what would be required to maintain stability: Output = Intake)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems to me that if this assertion were true that CO2 levels would be skyrocketing much more than can be documented.
global warming is false, in the beginning the sun moved in and out and so does it today, you should study something with more inportance. doesnt take a scientist to know that. if I lived in the USA I'ld be more worried about FEMA Coffins lol
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article is absolutely right... but for all the wrong reasons.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswrong, it use to be warmer
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfrgough.... nice job of missing rlaskers point. I could come back and be annoying, saying... News flash, climate is measured in millenia, not centuries. But that is just silly. The point being that weather is a snapshot of climate at a point in time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat makes you so arrogant to think that today's scientists are so stupid that they don't have data going back more than 4 decades?
sorry guys.....not convinced.....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisagain.....not convinced....let us all remember here that in the history of this earth....there were no ice caps....besides humanity adapts.....we need to worry more about populations than weather
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisit actually 2 degrees cold then it was 100 years ago dumbass's
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm kind of glad that the human race will come to an end, or at least all the huge populations will be trimmed down greatly, to a tiny little bit of Homo sapiens. We could get wiped out entirely, which is not likely. However, our annihilation of the the human race would not be a bad thing at all. Ours is a very flawed species. We are very primitive chimpanzee like people, with huge brains, an even bigger primitive instincts. We're not a very advanced species at all. Very self-destructive, destructive of the planet, and completely idiotic. Really, it's not going to be such a bad thing that Homo sapiens gets eliminated. No, it's not. In the scheme of the universe,ours is a very very flawed and primitive species. Really, it just didn't work out. Unfortunately, I'm afraid will destroy the planet before we die off. I do not know what the experts say about that, if the planet could stage a comeback, after were all dead.hopefully so. Otherwise, I suggest somebody, or some smart group, watch the end of the movie "12 monkeys", and do what the guy who was going to fly all over the world, did. That would be the best for everybody. Hey, that was a good movie too. Let's hope it was prophetic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswell, I won't be sorry to see Homo sapiens gone, if the whole race disappears. I doubt that it will, however , a large amount of the huge population will disappear, eventually, or, very fast. Starvation, plague, war, no water, etc. the planet won't support as many people, so a lot of people are going to disappear. Nobody wants to talk about that, do they?are any anthropologists going to talk about how this is going to affect civilization, and the populations? So far, all we get is geography and weather.I'm getting very tired of people ignoring the hard questions, because they're scared. Or, just squeamish. It's like the elephant in the room, nobody wants to talk about, or notice. Well, I'm not squeamish, so please, someone, talk about all the tough stuff that's going to happen, in an anthropological vein.includes sociology. Thank you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGISS model re: AGW is busted. Their model is total garbage. It predicts an increase in heat content of the ocean. Data show a decrease. Sorry guys, the AGW party is over. Time for Al Gore to get another job.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/06/the-global-warming-hypothesis-and-ocean-heat/
Denial is a funny thing. In a single variable world, CO2 is the ultimate enemy, no doubt. Evolution has granted Homo sapiens the ability to rub a single fact together in the main. But what do we call those who can rub more than a single fact together? And what do we do about the other 800 pound gorillas resident in the climate change room? Deny them too? Almost no one recognizes the vast natural resources is takes to keep a single human in Western Plush. The sacred cow of environmentalism is population. In 1999 Kofi Annan announced we had just crossed the 6 billion barrier. Ban Ki Moon announced last June that we would cross the 10 billion mark by 2050. It takes precious little imagination to see we will double human population before the end of this century, with all of the demands on natural resources that entails. But this you hear nothing about. Denying the copious effects of population growth is the badge of courage of all true deniers. And what about triple canopy rainforest devastation? The UN stated in 2001 that triple canopy rainforest would be gone in just a few decades. As it turns out, this was in error. Due to the brilliance of biofuels, and the devastation this is already causing, we can rest assured that we will not run out of rainforest in just a few decades. It will happen in less than a decade now. Would a person rightfully be considered a denier if one ignored the obvious climate changing potential of TCR devastation?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt the end of the day (interglacial?), denial may be best coined thusly: if global warming alarmists are correct, and greenhouse gases are the planet destroyers they have been crocked up to be (that would be predictions, potential future facts, not actual facts, yet), and if the past is any guide to the future and we are now at precisely one half of a precessional cycle (23k, so 11.5k is half), where each of the preceeding six interglacials (dating back to the Mid Pleistocene Transition) have met their demise, wouldn't it be amusing if we suddenly found (interglacials tend to end rather abruptly) ourselves in the embarassing need to spew out as much GHGs as we can to cushion our descent into the next ice age?
Meanwhile, enjoy the interglacial. While it lasts......
There are around 40,000 people dead from malaria because environmentalists weren't smart enought to "do nothing" about DDT. The exaggerations and misrepresentations of the UN IPCC are shameful.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh how I wish we could return to a more utopian time before CO2 emissions by man caused such things as hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and severe drought. Before
global warming brought about disasters like famine, disease, divorce, larger snakes, larger spiders, kidney stones and the nearly 600 items on this list: http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm.
Having said that, I now feel compelled to suggest the following as required viewing, listening, and reading before the conference in Copenhagen:
http://www.hootervillegazette.com/LordMonckton.html
Did you by chance miss the cooling scare of the 70s? I wonder how the planet experienced cooling during a time when CO2 emissions were increasing. I can tell by your post that you don't know the first thing about this. There is no consensus. Even if there were, it would be meaningless. I'm guessing you also haven't seen how the SPM handed out by the UN IPCC differs from the main body of the report. With that being said, you've probably never been told that scientists have resigned from the UN IPCC because of the way they distort the scientists work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDid you know that the Northwest Passage was first sailed in 1903. If all that ice melting at the turn of the last century, with both man and polar bears surviving, why can man with advanced technology not survive now.
You need to do a little reading to balance out your information on this subject:
http://www.hootervillegazette.com/LordMonckton.html
MAY (month end averages) NSIDC data
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1980 Southern Hemisphere = 9.5 million sq km
1980 Northern Hemisphere = 14.0 million sq km
Total = 23.5 million sq km
2008 Southern Hemisphere = 11.5 million sq km
2008 Northern Hemisphere = 13.2 million sq km
Total = 24.7 million sq km
2009 Southern Hemisphere = 11.4 million sq km
2009 Northern Hemisphere = 13.4 million sq km
Total = 24.8 million sq km
There is more ice now than 30 yrs. ago and 100,000 km more than last year. All satellite temp data indicates recent flattening and some cooling.
did anyone read this??? at bottom....having lived with a bomb shelter in the backyard thru elementary school, threat of another Ice Age, famine, droughts, one predictions of one catastrophe after another....build some nukes and turn down the thermostat....by the way....that guy on the corner with the sign that says "Repent The End Is Near" has been there for 50 years....repent already!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/9/29/the-yamal-implosion.html
Again no science in a so-called science article. This site needs some actual journalism.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisnostradamus-like predictions are not science...boog...booga...
This is an analysis of "Climategate" written at a level that even "non-scientists" can work through. The consequences justify the effort
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/Monckton-Caught%20Green-Handed%20Climategate%20Scandal.pdf
COLD FACTS ABOUT THE HOT TOPIC OF GLOBAL TEMPERATURE CHANGE AFTER THE CLIMATEGATE SCANDAL
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CAUGHT GREEN-HANDED!
THE WHISTLE BLOWS FOR TRUTH ............................................................... 3
REVEALED: THE ABJECT CORRUPTION OF CLIMATE SCIENCE ......................... 4
THE NATURE ‘TRICK’ TO ‘HIDE THE DECLINE’ IN TEMPERATURES ................... 5
BREAKING THE BROKEN CODE: DISSECTING THE DODGY DATA .................... 6
MAINSTREAM MEDIA ARE SILENT, BUT THE INTERNET ROARS .................... 10
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION? WHAT FREEDOM? ...................................... 11
WHY THE TRUTH ABOUT TEMPERATURE MATTERS ................................... 15
TERRESTRIAL VS. SATELLITE TEMPERATURE RECORDS ............................... 17
MORE OFFICIAL DISHONESTY ABOUT GLOBAL TEMPERATURE ..................... 23
A NATION TAMPERS WITH ITS TEMPERATURE RECORD .............................. 32
LYING EVEN TO CHILDREN ....................................................................... 35
AL GORE’S TEMPERATURE-RELATED FALSEHOODS ................................... 36
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? ............................................................................ 38
ESSENTIAL READINGS ............................................................................. 40
Shoshin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"GISS model re: AGW is busted. Their model is total garbage. It predicts an increase in heat content of the ocean. Data show a decrease. Sorry guys, the AGW party is over. Time for Al Gore to get another job."
" Their model is total garbage."
Oh yes? Data shows an increase.
http://www.realclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/levitus_ohc_comp.jpg
So...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe watch glaciers disappear from most places where they are currently.
We see the seas rise and coral reefs begin to die.
We see plant and animal extinctions.
The numbers show global warming is happening.
And most of you want to do absolutely nothing about it.
Your children will curse you for bringing them into this dying world.
And still you say "do nothing".
I am very, very glad I am the last of my line, with no progeny to witness the destruction we are bringing.
We have become Death.