A New Global Warming Prediction: two articles on more extreme global climate change to come

Global warming will be worse than expected, scientist warns

The impact of global warming has been underestimated and will be much worse than previously believed, a leading Stanford University climate scientist has warned.
 
A report from the American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting in Chicago, published by the Telegraph.uk.co

By Sarah Knapton
Last Updated: 2:21PM GMT 15 Feb 2009

“We are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we’ve considered seriously in climate policy.  Professor Chris Field

A top scientist urges Governments to act now to combat climate change as he says the earth will warm quicker than expected ;

 http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1488655367/bctid12707126001

Professor Chris Field, the author of a landmark report on climate change, claimed future temperatures “will be beyond anything” previously predicted.

Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Chicago, he said greenhouse gases increased far more rapidly than expected between 2000 and 2007.

“We are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we’ve considered seriously in climate policy,” he said.

Prof Field said his 2007 report, which predicted temperature rises between 1.98F (1.1C) and 11.52F (6.4C) over the next century, seriously underestimated the scale of the problem.

And he blamed the unexpected increases on the burgeoning economies of India and China which are burning massive amounts of coal for electric power.

The warming planet is likely to dry out tropical forests, making them susceptible to wildfires.

The rising temperatures could also speed up the melting of the permafrost, vastly increasing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, Prof Field warns.

“Without effective action, climate change is going to be larger and more difficult to deal with than we thought,” he said.

Prof Field is the director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology, Professor of Biology and Professor of Environmental Earth System Science, at Stanford University.

*****************************************************************************************************

For an excellent analysis of this story and its implications go to ClimateProgress.org and read what Joseph Romm has to say:

AAAS: Climate change is coming much harder, much faster than predicted

At the end of his article, Joe Romm concludes:

“Field said the U.N. panel’s next assessment of Earth’s climate trends, scheduled for release in 2014, will for the first time incorporate policy proposals. It will also include complicated models of interconnected ecosystem feedbacks.

The panel’s last report noted that preliminary knowledge of such feedbacks suggested that an additional 100 billion to 500 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions would have to be prevented in the next century to avoid dangerous global warming. Currently, about 10 billion tons of carbon are emitted each year.

Finally, in the Fifth Assessment, the IPCC may tell the public what they need to hear. The paragraph (in bold typeface) above is among the most important conclusions from the Fourth Assessment, but the IPCC buried the lead, as I have repeatedly pointed out (see “Nature publishes my climate analysis and solution“). And from the Yahoo story:

Field is co-chair of the group charged with assessing the impacts of climate change on social, economic and natural systems for the IPCC’s fifth assessment due in 2014.

The 2007 fourth assessment presented at a “very conservative range of climate outcomes” but the next report will “include futures with a lot more warming,” Field said.

“We now know that, without effective action, climate change is going to be larger and more difficult to deal with than we thought.”

The time to act is now.

**********************************************************************************************************

Al Gore’s speech at the AAAS meeting Friday night, February 13, 2009

http://www.aaas.org/meetings/2009/program/lectures/gore.shtml

**********************************************************************************************************

Editor’s note: What we need now is everyone, everywhere, with defiant and determined optimism, doubling and tripling their efforts mitigate the effects of dangerous climate change.