10 years to save the world, not more

Just saw this as I was on my way to bed... makes me feel particularly relevant and needed... which is good, given the difficulty I'm having in getting presentations set up in Iowa for the week of March 5-10. So if there's a bright side to the report that will come out later this week, it's that I'm needed... hmmm...

... can't wait to read the full report later this week.



From http://www.planet2025news.net/ntext.rxml?id=4003&photo=66 --

The Times gave a final warning about climate change: 10 years to save world. That is the conclusion after looking into the final draft of a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report, that is to be published this week, is based on the work of thousands of scientists from around the world who have been studying changes in the world’s climate and predicting how they might accelerate.

Scientists say rising greenhouses gases will make climate change unstoppable in a decade and conclude that unless mankind rapidly stabilises greenhouse gas emissions and starts reducing them, it will have little chance of keeping global warming within manageable limits.

"This is slam dunk city," said Jerry Mahlman in NJ.com. The retired director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University reviewed a preliminary draft of the report. "We are certain that global warming is the real deal. We expect the warming of the planet to be pretty much incontestable."

According to the Times “the results could include the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef, the forced migration of hundreds of millions of people from equatorial regions, and the loss of vast tracts of land under rising seas as the ice caps melt.

In Europe the summers could become unbearably hot, especially in southern countries such as Greece, Spain and Italy, while Britain and northern Europe would face summer droughts and wet, stormy winters.”

“The next 10 years are crucial,” said Richard Betts, leader of a research team at the Met Office’s Hadley Centre for climate prediction. “In that decade we have to achieve serious reductions in carbon emissions. After that time the task becomes very much harder.”

The report is geared for multiple audiences, including the public, government leaders and scientists. While details such as the precise change in sea level may be debated this week, several scientists involved in the effort said the report will ask and answer four basic questions:

# Can humans affect the climate system and, if so, what changes have been observed? The report will say that natural factors alone can no longer explain the changes seen in the second half of the 20th century, citing a new physical understanding of the climate system.

# How sure are we that humans are responsible for climate change? The report will say that it is a virtual certainty that humans have caused the change, meaning that the scientists are "99 percent" certain.

# How sure are we that humans are responsible for climate change? The report will say that it is a virtual certainty that humans have caused the change, meaning that the scientists are "99 percent" certain.

# How different will the climate be in the future? The climate, its chemical mix now substantially altered by higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, will continue to warm. Ice sheets will continue to melt, making sea levels rise.

# How has science changed our understanding of global warming since international efforts were launched in 1990? All the evidence has come together, scientists say, to form an internally consistent story.

Nearly 2,000 scientists were involved in the study. They were selected from a larger pool nominated by governments using criteria like extent of scientific expertise, home country (to assure diversity of region) and a spectrum of views, from die-hard environmentalist to the more recalcitrant skeptic.