← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · kminta
Thread ID: 6518 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2003-05-06
2003-05-06 17:48 | User Profile
[url=http://eces.org/earth_crash/showarticle.php?id=261]Earth Crash Website[/url]
(02/17/2003) Leading U.S. government climate scientist says "It's clear that we're in the midst of a rapidly changing climate that has accelerated in the past 25 years," warns global temperatures could rise 7-8ðF over the next 100 years, threatening the world's food supply and making the changes during the last ice age seem like a "mere minor perturbation" in comparison. *
A leading U.S. government climate scientist says that average temperatures around the world will rise by as much as 7 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit before the end of this century - a major climate change that could affect widespread crop fertility and the economies of many industrial nations. The scientist, Warren Washington, chief of the Climate Change Research Group at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, is a 40-year veteran of climate research. He is also chairman of the National Science Board and has been an adviser on climate issues to five presidential administrations, from Carter to Bush.
Warming land and ocean surfaces, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, and other recent evidence strongly suggest that Earth's climate is already changing rapidly because of the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, according to Washington. Computer models of Earth's climate support these observations, he says, and indicate more severe changes yet to come. Even if societies successfully cap worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, the global climate will continue to warm into the 22nd century, though at a slower rate than if no attempt is made to control the emissions, Washington says.
"Scientific confidence in the ability of models to project future climate has increased," says Washington. "Meanwhile, recent experiments and routine monitoring have found evidence of global climate changes already occurring that are much larger than can be explained by the climate's natural variability."
Noting that concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane did not start to increase significantly until the 20th century*, Washington demonstrated with charts and graphs worldwide projections for average temperature in 2050 and 2090, and compared the data to the relatively stable temperature pattern in the 1,000 years that preceded the growing presence of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
"It's clear," Washington said, "that we're in the midst of a rapidly changing climate that has accelerated in the past 25 years." It makes the last ice age - an event that ended more than 10,000 years ago - a "mere minor perturbation," he said. In only the past 25 years, he said, global average temperatures have already risen between a third and eight-tenths of a degree, and the pace is increasing even now, he said.
On the basis of the most recent computer models by many research groups - including those developed by his own colleagues at Boulder - Washington said, "Scientific confidence in the ability of the models to project future climate has increased." Recent experiments as well as routine monitoring, he said, "have found evidence of global climate changes already occurring that are much larger than can be explained by the climate's natural variability."
Sources
(02/17/2003) San Francisco Chronicle: Earth's temperatures heating up - Averages to rise 8 degrees by end of century, climate scientist says.
(02/17/2003) Science Daily: Computer Models Forecast Sharp Increase In Temperature If Heat-trapping Emissions Continue To Rise.
(02/17/2003) Oregonian: Portland native advises nation on climate's changes.
(02/16/2003) EurekAlert: Predicting the climate of the 21st century.
(02/17/2003) Science Daily: Computer Models Forecast Sharp Increase In Temperature If Heat-trapping Emissions Continue To Rise.
2003-05-06 19:55 | User Profile
what is your point in posting this report, Kmainta? Do you believe it based on your scientific expertise, or do you accept it because of your expertise in geological physics? The truth regarding global warming will be known in the next few decades, but even then the long time effect of any change will not be. Sadly, the question of global warming is 90% politically influenced and 10% science driven. In brief the truth of its happening is a liberal, radecol fact, not to be questioned.
2003-05-06 20:04 | User Profile
Climate changes or stays the same no matter what humans do but local effects are massive and can damage thing communities and even nations.
Lake Erie was hazardous 30 years ago before industrial pollution controls. This is scientifically measureable.
There's a permanent brownish cloud over the industrial zone in the East, which covers Eastern India and part of China. These local effects are indeed man-made, debauch the environment and blight lives. Profit is no excuse for this sort of thing.
The whole ecological issue was framed as "save the planet" and "global warming" from the beginning, to better pull off global socialism. But the real devil is in the details. Western Europe cleaning itself up and sending the blight to Pakistan and South Korea was a disaster, and Western ecologists helped make it happen.