-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: January 21, 2007 9:41:04 PM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Global Warming -- Kiss Your A** Goodbye, Homo Sapiens
Global warming:
the final verdict
A study by the world's leading experts says global warming will
happen faster and be more devastating than previously thought
Robin McKie, science editor
January 21, 2007, The Observer (UK)
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1995348,00.html
Global warming is destined to have a far more destructive and
earlier impact than previously estimated, the most authoritative
report yet produced on climate change will warn next week.
A draft copy of the Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtained by The
Observer, shows the frequency of devastating storms -- like the
ones that battered Britain last week -- will increase dramatically.
Sea levels will rise over the century by around half a metre; snow
will disappear from all but the highest mountains; deserts will
spread; oceans become acidic, leading to the destruction of coral
reefs and atolls; and deadly heatwaves will become more prevalent.
The impact will be catastrophic, forcing hundreds of millions of
people to flee their devastated homelands, particularly in
tropical, low-lying areas, while creating waves of immigrants whose
movements will strain the economies of even the most affluent
countries.
'The really chilling thing about the IPCC report is that it is the
work of several thousand climate experts who have widely differing
views about how greenhouse gases will have their effect. Some think
they will have a major impact, others a lesser role. Each paragraph
of this report was therefore argued over and scrutinised intensely.
Only points that were considered indisputable survived this
process. This is a very conservative document -- that's what makes
it so scary,' said one senior UK climate expert.
Climate concerns are likely to dominate international politics next
month. President Bush is to make the issue a part of his state of
the union address on Wednesday while the IPCC report's final
version is set for release on 2 February in a set of global news
conferences.
Although the final wording of the report is still being worked on,
the draft indicates that scientists now have their clearest idea so
far about future climate changes, as well as about recent events.
It points out that:
· 12 of the past 13 years were the warmest since records began;
· ocean temperatures have risen at least three kilometres beneath
the surface;
· glaciers, snow cover and permafrost have decreased in both
hemispheres;
· sea levels are rising at the rate of almost 2mm a year;
· cold days, nights and frost have become rarer while hot days, hot
nights and heatwaves have become more frequent.
And the cause is clear, say the authors: 'It is very likely that
[man-made] greenhouse gas increases caused most of the average
temperature increases since the mid-20th century,' says the report.
To date, these changes have caused global temperatures to rise by
0.6C. The most likely outcome of continuing rises in greenhouses
gases will be to make the planet a further 3C hotter by 2100,
although the report acknowledges that rises of 4.5C to 5C could be
experienced. Ice-cap melting, rises in sea levels, flooding,
cyclones and storms will be an inevitable consequence.
Past assessments by the IPCC have suggested such scenarios are
'likely' to occur this century. Its latest report, based on
sophisticated computer models and more detailed observations of
snow cover loss, sea level rises and the spread of deserts, is far
more robust and confident. Now the panel writes of changes as
'extremely likely' and 'almost certain'.
And in a specific rebuff to sceptics who still argue natural
variation in the Sun's output is the real cause of climate change,
the panel says mankind's industrial emissions have had five times
more effect on the climate than any fluctuations in solar
radiation. We are the masters of our own destruction, in short.
There is some comfort, however. The panel believes the Gulf Stream
will go on bathing Britain with its warm waters for the next 100
years. Some researchers have said it could be disrupted by cold
waters pouring off Greenland's melting ice sheets, plunging western
Europe into a mini Ice Age, as depicted in the disaster film The
Day After Tomorrow.
The report reflects climate scientists' growing fears that Earth is
nearing the stage when carbon dioxide rises will bring irreversible
change to the planet. 'We are seeing vast sections of Antarctic ice
disappearing at an alarming rate,' said climate expert Chris
Rapley, in a phone call to The Observer from the Antarctic
Peninsula last week. 'That means we can expect to see sea levels
rise at about a metre a century from now on -- and that will have
devastating consequences.'
However, there is still hope, said Peter Cox of Exeter University.
'We are like alcoholics who have got as far as admitting there is a
problem. It is a start. Now we have got to start drying out --
which means reducing our carbon output.'
www.ctrl.org
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