Global warming probably caused by human activity, U.N. report says
Queen Mum Inks.LWC:
Just curious--how is this credible, since during the 70s they had predicted that the world would go into an ice age?
[size=5Global warming probably caused by human activity, U.N. report says[/size]
[img]http://usatoday.com/weather/_photos/2007/01/30/reuthailandtsunami-large.jpg[/img[ Enlarge By Chaiwat Subprasom, Reuters
Rising sea levels could threaten low-lying Pacific islands, coasts from Bangladesh to Florida and cities from Shanghai to Buenos Aires.
IPCC REPORT FINDINGS
A brief look at the main findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report:
THE CAUSE: Global warming is "very likely" caused by man, the strongest conclusion to date.
THE OUTLOOK: Now that the world has begun to warm, hotter temperatures and rises in sea level "would continue for centuries" no matter how much humans control their pollution.
TEMPERATURE CHANGE: The panel predicted temperature rises of 2°F-11.5°F by the year 2100. That was a wider range than in the 2001 report. However, the panel also said its best estimate was for temperature rises of 3.2°F-7.1°F. In 2001, all the panel gave was a range of 2.5°F-10.4°F.
SEA LEVELS: The report projected rises of 7-23 inches by the end of the century. An additional 3.9-7.8 inches are possible if recent, surprising melting of polar ice sheets continues.
HURRICANES: An increase in hurricane and tropical cyclone strength since 1970 "more likely than not" can be attributed to man-made global warming. The scientists said global warming's connection varies with storms in different parts of the world, but that the storms that strike the Americas are global warming-influenced.
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Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
USA TODAY staff and wires
A United Nations report issued today by the world's top climate scientists said global warning was "very likely" man-made and would bring higher temperatures and a steady rise in sea levels for centuries.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which which issued the report, was created in 1988 and releases its assessments every five or six years. The panel include scientists from 113 countries.
"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widspread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level," said the IPCC report.
It said this would "continue for centuries" regardless of how much the world slows or reduces its greenhouse gas emissions.
"We are on the historic threshold of the irreversible," warned French President Jacques Chirac, who called for an economic and political "revolution" to save the planet.
The panel's bleak 21-page report, released officially in Paris, was aimed at laying out the how, what and why of global warming, but not to offer remedies.
Another report by the panel later this year will address the most effective measures for slowing global warming.
The report said man-made emissions of greenhouse gases can already be blamed for fewer cold days, hotter nights, killer heat waves, floods and heavy rains, devastating droughts, and an increase in hurricane and tropical storm strength — particularly in the Atlantic Ocean.
"The element of surprise here is that the picture is becoming so clear … that (climate) changes are due to human activity," said Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences. "And the warming really is everywhere. We're not seeing pockets of cooling anymore."
He notes that only Antarctica has not shown the same level of warming as the rest of the globe, and that's because there is a human-caused hole in the protective ozone layer over that southernmost continent.
Even though the report is "a little cautious and conservative" because it represents the views of more than 1,000 scientists from more than 100 nations, Cicerone says its findings "are going to bring more awareness to all of us that this climate change is real, in an area where there's been a lot of confusing information until now."
U.N. Environment Program executive director Achim Steiner said the report was a call to action.
"The public should not sit back and say 'There's nothing we can do'," Steiner said. "Anyone who would continue to risk inaction on the basis of the evidence presented here will one day in the history books be considered irresponsible."
Some blamed much of the problem on the Untited States.
South Africa's Environmental Affairs Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk called the report "a wake-up call to the world's largest emitter, the United States."
"While climate changes run like a rabbit, world politics move like a snail: either we accelerate or we risk a disaster," said Italy's environment minister, Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio.
In Washington, Democrats quickly seized upon the report.
"Although President Bush just noticed that the earth is heating up, the American public, every reputable scientist and other world leaders have long recognized that global warming is real and it's serious. The time to act is now," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
He and Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, of Maine, have sponsored one of a number of bills to tackle global warming.
LAWMAKERS REACT: White House defends record
In Paris, the head of the U.S. delegation, White House associate science adviser Sharon Hays, in an interview with the Associated Press, called the panel's summary "a significant report. It will be valuable to policymakers."
The White House quickly defended Bush's record on global climate change, noting that in 2001 that the increase in greenhouse gases is due largely to human activity.
It said Bush and his budget proposals have devoted $29 billion to climate-related science, technology, international assistance and incentive programs — "more money than any other country."
The report was blunt in its findings. If it looks bad now, the harmful effects during the 21st century "would very likely be larger than those observed during the 20th century," the report said.
The panel predicted temperature rises of 2°F to 11.5°F by the year 2100. That was a wider range than in the 2001 report. However, the panel also said its best estimate was for temperature rises of 3.2°F to 7.1°F.
On sea levels, the report projects rises of 7-23 inches by the end of the century. An additional 3.9-7.8 inches are possible if recent, surprising melting of polar ice sheets continues.
"The situation is more dire than (at the time of the 2001 report) because we have real possibilities that the situation can be much greater than we have seen before," said co-author Kevin Trenberth, director of climate analysis at the U.S National Center for Atmospheric Research.
A colleague from the center, Gerry Miehl, warned that continued global warming could eventually lead to an "ice-free Arctic."
And the report said no matter how much civilization slows or reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and sea level rise will continue on for centuries.
"This is just not something you can stop. We're just going to have to live with it," co-author Kevin Trenberth, director of climate analysis for the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, said in an interview. "We're creating a different planet. If you were to come up back in 100 years time, we'll have a different climate."
Scientists worry that world leaders will take that message in the wrong way and throw up their hands, Trenberth said. That would be wrong, he said. Instead, the scientists urged leaders to reduce emissions and also adapt to a warmer world with wilder weather.
"The point here is to highlight what will happen if we don't do something and what will happen if we do something," co-author Jonathan Overpeck at University of Arizona said. "I can tell if you will decide not to do something the impacts will be much larger than if we do something."
"You make a difference on hundred of years time frame, but this is the future of the planet," Trenberth told the Associated Press. "We have to adapt to it."
Trenberth said the world is paying more attention to scientists now than in previous warnings in 1990, 1995 and 2001. "The tension is more now," he said.
As the IPCC report was being released, environmental activists rappeled off a Paris bridge and draped a banner over a statue used often as a popular gauge of whether the Seine River is running high.
"Alarm bells are ringing. The world must wake up to the threat posed by climate change," said Catherine Pearce of Friends of the Earth.
Contributing: Sue Kelly in McLean, Va.; Patrick O'Driscoll and The Associated Press.
MODU:
It's all those darn cows we raise for milk and beef. We're such a bad influence on the world. WHAAAA
David S:
One interesting point I gleaned from the article; "And the report said no matter how much civilization slows or reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and sea level rise will continue on for centuries."
In other words even if we ban all burning of fossil fuels it won't solve the problem. So how about a different approach? Dr Edward Teller proposed reducing the earth's temperature by reflecting some of the sunlight away from it. He proposed several means of achieving it. That approach might be able to do the job much faster. Teller's study also suggests that it would be much cheaper than eliminating our use of fossil fuel. It also makes sense that we should find ways of controlling the earth's temperature so we can avoid naturally occurring climate changes like ice ages.
There is always more than one way to skin a cat.
Gabu:
Quote from: David S on February 02, 2007, 01:10:29 PM
So how about a different approach? Dr Edward Teller proposed reducing the earth's temperature by reflecting some of the sunlight away from it. He proposed several means of achieving it. That approach might be able to do the job much faster. Teller's study also suggests that it would be much cheaper than eliminating our use of fossil fuel.
Wouldn't that basically require us to reflect more and more and more of the sunlight away from the world every year as the concentration of greenhouse gases go up and up until one day we couldn't let any sunlight in at all? It seems to me that if any alternate method might work, it would be some sort of method of removing some of the greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, since this would actually address the problem itself, not the symptom.
Even so, it would not exactly hurt to cut greenhouse gas emissions to actually slow down the process and to give us a chance to research the issue before everyone dies.
MODU:
Yeah, and I'm not too thrilled with the concept of littering our upper atmosphere with reflective particles which may end up trapping heat within the atmosphere and cooking us by accident, let alone break down and "rain" upon us so we can all enjoy a new form of lung disease as a result. Obviously the Earth will have a natural countermeasure to cool the planet, as she has done in the past. Of course, again, we're dealing with computer models which can not take into account all the known and unknown variables to begin with, so the conclusions might be wrong.
Do what you can, and plant a tree (especially show it will shadow over a paved area). You'll be doing more to help cool your own part of the world that way than anything the government will come up with in the next decade.
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