Global warming far worse then though

Global worming over climate change and its effects has doubled after the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Since then, many of the 2,500-odd IPCC scientists have discovered climate change is progressing faster than the worst scenario they had forecasted.

Their reports will be considered for the next IPCC report, but since that will get out only in 2013, the University of New South Wales in Sydney has just put together the main determinations in the last three years. Most are by previous IPCC lead authors “familiar with the rigor and completeness required for a technological assessment of this nature”, a university spokesperson said.

The most significant recent findings are global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were 40 percent higher than in 1990. The recent Copenhagen Accord said warming should be held within two degrees, but every year of delayed action increases the chances of exceeding the two-degree warming mark.

Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas (GHG) warming the atmosphere.

To hold within the two-degree limit, global GHG discharges need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly. To stabilize climate, near-zero discharges of carbon dioxide and other long-lived GHG should be reached well within this century.

More specifically, the average annual emissions will have to shrink to well under one ton carbon dioxide by 2050. This is 80-95 percent below the per-capita emissions in developed countries in 2000.

Over the past 25 years temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.19 degree Celsius per decade. The movement has continued over the last 10 years despite a fall in radioactivity from the sun.

The reports display extreme hot temperature events have raised and extreme cold temperature issues have reduced, heavy rain or snow has become heavier, while there has been growth in drought as well.

They also point that the intensity of cyclones has risen in the past three decades in line with rising tropical ocean temperatures.

Satellites show recent international average sea level rise of “3.4 mm per year over the past 15 years” to be about 80 percent above IPCC predictions. This acceleration is consistent with a doubling in contribution from melting of glaciers, ice caps, and the Greenland and West-Antarctic ice fields.

New estimates of sea heat uptake are 50 percent higher than previous calculations. Global ocean surface temperature achieved the warmest of all time recorded in June, July and August 2009. Ocean acidification and ocean de-oxygenation due to global warming have been identified as potentially damaging for important parts of the underwater ecosystem.

By 2100, global sea level is likely to raise at least twice as much as projected by the IPCC in 2007; if emissions are unmitigated the rise may well pass one meter.

The sea level will continue to rise for centuries afterward global temperatures have been stabilized, and several meters of sea point rise must be expected over the next few centuries.

A wide array of satellite and ice measurements present that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice fields are melting at progressive rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in different parts of the world has also quickened since 1990.

The contribution of glaciers and ice-caps to global ocean level grow has increased from 0.8 mm per year in the 1990s to 1.2 mm per year today. The adjustment of glaciers and ice crowns to present climate alone is expected to elevate sea level by about 18 cm. Under warming conditions they may contribute as much as around 55 cm by 2100.

Summer-time dissolving of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the prospects of climate models. The area of summertime sea-ice 2007-09 was around 40 percent less than the average forecasting from IPCC climate models in the 2007 study.

The studies say avoiding tropical deforestation could prevent up to 20 percent of carbon dioxide emissions.

New ice-core records confirm the importance of GHG for temperatures on earth, and display that carbon dioxide levels are higher now than they have been during the last 800,000 years.

Article written by: ScreenQuip

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