What could 4 degree warming mean for the world?
September 28, 2009
Scientists say the need to cut emissions is even more urgent.
(PhysOrg.com) -- A leading climate scientist has presented new research findings on the increasing potential for a 4 degrees Celsius rise in global temperatures if the current high emissions of greenhouse gases continue.
A leading climate scientist has presented new research findings on the increasing potential for a 4 degrees Celsius rise in global temperatures if the current high emissions of greenhouse gases continue.
The conference at Oxford University is the first to consider the global consequences of climate change beyond 2 degrees Celsius, and is jointly sponsored by University’s Environmental Change Institute, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and the Met Office Hadley Centre.
Speaking at the international conference called ‘4 degrees and beyond’ at Oxford University, Dr Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre, described the possibility of a 4 degree warming happening ‘before the end of the century’. He added that a scenario of very intensive fossil fuel burning could bring this forward by 20 years.
Topics from over 50 other conference research papers will include: food and water security, vulnerable populations, human health, migration, wild fires, sea level rise, wildlife conservation, and ecosystem services. Regional case studies will include Amazonia, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, Finland, Mauritius, Siberia, Vietnam, and the monsoon region.
Conference convenor Dr Mark New, from the Oxford University School of Geography and the Environment, and the Tyndall Centre, said: ‘Since the late 1990s, greenhouse gas emissions have increased at close to the most extreme IPCC scenarios, meaning that rates of warming will be faster than most people expect. The conference will review the best science on the consequences of these large climate changes and what we can do about it.’
In today’s presentation Dr Betts warned that 4 degrees of warming could have extreme regional implications along with major changes in rainfall. He said: ‘If greenhouse emissions are not cut soon, then we could see major climate changes within our own lifetimes.’
Other speakers are Professor John Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, on 4 degrees warming and the potential for tipping points; Professor Yadvinder Mahli, from Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, on the impact on tropical forests; Dr Philip Thornton, International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, on sub-Saharan agriculture; Dr Pier Vellinga, from Wageningen University, on sea-level rise; and Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, on global emission pathways.
Provided by Oxford University (news : web)
Jun 18, 2009 |
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I'm quite confident that a leading climate scientist (Dr. Bretts) who has published over 40 papers on the subject and was a lead IPCC author is aware of many things which you are not.
To answer your insinuations more directly, I'm sure if you'd read his work you'd understand more thoroughly what he acknowledges. Are you ignorant enough to believe that these "positive" changes would not be severely overshadowed by other negative (and catastrophic) changes?
I wonder if this discovery is "worse than they previously thought"?
Anybody with half brain knows that this 4 degree temperature increase is entirely fictious to begin with. It is like Drake equation in astrophysics. They have no idea how forcing and feedback would play so they basically fabricate numbers.
Wake me up when this temperature graph
http://www.nerc-b...rend.pdf
shows any meaningful trend. Oh, yeah, Steig (another leading scientist?) cooked up (err, interpolated) some numbers and it now official: antarctica warms up!
I think it's very very important to note he is doing nothing more than speculating on speculation. Just as you and I are just speculating. I also think it's important to note, that when you consider the guaranteed associations of an expanding tropical belt and pushing northward of warm latitudes, it's entirely possible that a warmer earth is a boon to far greater numbers of people than a bane (i.e. increase world food production). Of course, these larger numbers of peoples would mostly be "third-world" populations.
If you know the difference between weather and climate, you know that's irrelevant. If you don't, you should look them up. Weather is a lot harder to predict than climate. I can't tell you with 100% certainty that it won't rain tomorrow in the desert, but I can certainly tell you that it won't rain daily in the desert.
So, to simplify, this is the same "group" that says California will get more rain during El Niño, but can't say which days it will rain.
No, what you insinuated is that he doesn't know what he's talking about, is deliberately ignoring any potential positive benefits, and is cooking up results for grant money. At the same time you admit that you haven't actually bothered to read the research.
Your argument can be summed up as "I don't know what I'm talking about therefore neither does he." This is patently false. If you have specific arguments, backed by empirical evidence, please bring them up. Otherwise, you may be simply speculating, but he is doing actual research.
No. We were talking about my first post and it's insinuation, which is unarguably minimal. My second post made no insinuation at all, I made a hypothetical wager. I don't have to read his research to make a wager, indeed if I had read his paper a wager wouldn't be applicable as I'd know. Additionally, I have read plenty of literature from the AGW movement, enough to know they all make the same assumptions, based on incomplete science.
So, my argument can actually be summed up as "I know what his "camp's" argument is, and I know what they generally focus on, I know it is all incomplete science, and therefore may make many insinuations and wagers with impunity". This is patently true.
Therefore my specific argument is: AGW theories are based on incomplete science and their conclusions are not meaningful.
I know the difference, its a matter of time. A lot of people like to say that the warming in models is a long term statistics based trend. But if they can't make a 3 month prediction (like if the coming summer will be warmer or cooler than average) there is no reason to think they understand the factors involved well enough to make 30 to 100 year predictions.
Added to that the climate models have two, practically, impossible obstacles:
1) the system is chaos driven so small inputs can cause large changes (and vice versa).
2) the initial conditions issue, the initial state may determine the final result and if you don't know the initial state...
As for seasonal predictions, I find it quite amusing that I brought up the example of El Nino, so you deliberately sidestepped my "predicted rainier winter" and went for summer instead. Cute.
The rest of your points are also irrelevant at best.