GLOBAL warming is likely to be less extreme than claimed, researchers said yesterday. The most likely temperature rise will be 1.9C (3.4F) compared with the 3.5C predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The Norwegian study says earlier predictions were based on rapid warming in the Nineties. But Oslo University’s department of geosciences included data since 2000 when temperature rises “levelled off nearly completely”.
Doubled CO2 means just 1.9°C warming, says Norwegian gov
“In our project we have worked on finding out the overall effect of all known feedback mechanisms,” says project manager Terje Berntsen, who is a professor at the University of Oslo’s Department of Geosciences and a senior research fellow at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research – Oslo (CICERO).
“We used a method that enables us to view the entire earth as one giant ‘laboratory’ where humankind has been conducting a collective experiment through our emissions of greenhouse gases and particulates, deforestation, and other activities that affect climate.”
The Research Council of Norway: Global warming less extreme than feared?
Policymakers are attempting to contain global warming at less than 2°C. New estimates from a Norwegian project on climate calculations indicate this target may be more attainable than many experts have feared.
Internationally renowned climate researcher Caroline Leck of Stockholm University has evaluated the Norwegian project and is enthusiastic.
“These results are truly sensational,” says Dr Leck. “If confirmed by other studies, this could have far-reaching impacts on efforts to achieve the political targets for climate.”
“This research confirms what we have been saying all along. The global warming standstill of the last 16 years is having a dramatic effect on climate models and predictions. The Met Office should now reassess its own, flawed computer models and tone down the alarmist pronouncements which are no longer trustworthy.”
The Met Office last month predicted cooler than expected temperatures for the next five years leading to claims global warming is stalling.
Warming over this century is projected to be considerably greater than over the last century. The global average temperature since 1900 has risen by about 1.5°F. By 2100, it is projected to rise another 2 to 10°F.
However, even the previous IPCC imminent doom scenario completely failed to produce any serious action (apart from some dishonest machinations which artifically force up electricity bills to pay for pointless windmills). With the recent gradual scientific acceptance - even among scientists who have spent their whole lives studying the subject - that global warming is simply much less significant than had been thought, the chance of anyone caring enough to take action is now even lower
I am James Lovelock, scientist and author, known as the originator of Gaia theory, a view of the Earth that sees it as a self-regulating entity that keeps the surface environment always fit for life… I am an environmentalist and founder member of the Greens but I bow my head in shame at the thought that our original good intentions should have been so misunderstood and misapplied. We never intended a fundamentalist Green movement that rejected all energy sources other than renewable, nor did we expect the Greens to cast aside our priceless ecological heritage because of their failure to understand that the needs of the Earth are not separable from human needs. We need take care that the spinning windmills do not become like the statues on Easter Island, monuments of a failed civilisation.
New York Times January 27, 2013
Climate Change January 26, 2013
Weaker Global Warming Seen in Study Promoted by Norway’s Research Council
Purveyors of climate doubt have seized on a news release from the Research Council of Norway with this provocative title: “Global warming less extreme than feared?” The release describes new research finding that global warming from the buildup of greenhouse gases will be on the low end of the persistently wide spread of projections by other research groups.
Gavin Schmidt describes the different approaches to the question, and why there are essentially two conclusions, both surrounded by different kinds of uncertainty. His takeaway line:
[T]he ‘meta-uncertainty’ across the methods remains stubbornly high with support for both
relatively low numbers around 2ºC and higher ones around 4ºC, so that is likely to remain
the consensus range.
Originally posted by StrangeOldBrew
There is one fact that no honest scientist will ever argue, and it is this: EVERY ECOSYSTEM ON THE PLANET IS EXPERIENCING SEVERE DECLINE IN BIODIVERSITY AND OVERALL HEALTH CAUSED BY UNSUSTAINABLE HUMAN ENCROACHMENT AND RESOURCE EXTRACTION. If you deny this statement, you are a complete fool. There is no debate on this FACT within the scientific community.
In the past scientists have warned that up to five per cent of species are at risk of dying-out as a result of climate change, deforestation and development.
But a new analysis by the University of New Zealand found that this figure was five times greater than reality because the number of animals living in the wild in the first place had been over estimated.
This meant that conservationists assumed that rates of decline were much faster, as they were starting from a higher point.
In fact the rate of extinction is much slower, with just one per cent of animals in danger of dying out globally.
Some years ago I testified at an oversight hearing before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. The topic of the hearing was on the impact of science on public policy. I focused on various failed apocalyptic environmentalist predictions, one of which was the allegedly imminent extinction of a huge percentage of the Earth's species. Specifically I reviewed a number of earlier such [failed] predictions:
The paper conceded that Earth was in the midst of a "human-caused mass extinction phase" but reached more optimistic conclusions on biodiversity than other researchers, such as those at the California Academy of Sciences.
While the research suggests that species are more likely to be discovered than go extinct, the authors do not underplay the threats to species and their habitats.
The combination of over-hunting, habitat loss and climate change mean that extinction rates could increase rapidly in the future.
Despite their reassurances about the plight of life on Earth, the scientists said there was no room for complacency.
"Climate change will dramatically change species survival rates, particularly when you factor in other drivers such as over-hunting and habitat loss," said Prof Stork.
"At this stage we have no way of knowing by how much extinction rates may escalate.
"But once global warming exceeds the two degrees barrier, we can expect to see the scale of loss many people already believe is happening.
"Higher temperature rises coupled with other environmental impacts will lead to mass extinctions."
Originally posted by BlueMule
It doesn't take a weather-man to know which way the wind blows. Anyone can see for themselves that the weather has been anomalous. Deny it or downplay it, and you just look like a fool with an agenda, imo.
Every one of those articles claims global climate change is a reality and will have an increased effect on extinction rates. Considering this, it means you believe them when they say extinction rates are not as high as thought, but you think they are fear mongering and liars when they make claims about global climate change.
Originally posted by StrangeOldBrew
reply to post by jdub297
How am I an anthropogenic global warming alarmist? I said explicitly that the AGW debate is essentially meaningless.
EVERY ECOSYSTEM ON THE PLANET IS EXPERIENCING SEVERE DECLINE IN BIODIVERSITY AND OVERALL HEALTH CAUSED BY UNSUSTAINABLE HUMAN ENCROACHMENT AND RESOURCE EXTRACTION.
As incomes go up, people often focus first on cleaning up their drinking water, and then later on air pollutants like sulfur dioxide.
As their wealth grows, people consume more energy, but they move to more efficient and cleaner sources — from wood to coal and oil, and then to natural gas and nuclear power, progressively emitting less carbon per unit of energy. This global decarbonization trend has been proceeding at a remarkably steady rate since 1850, according to Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller University and Paul Waggoner of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.
Current forecasting methods suggest that global warming will cause many extinctions, but the fossil record indicates that, in most regions, surprisingly few species went extinct during the Quaternary (from approximately 2.5 million years BCE to the present)—in North America ... . We refer to this contrast between the implications of modern forecasts and the observed fossil record as the “Quaternary conundrum.” The resolution of this conundrum is key to improving forecasts of climate-change effects on biodiversity
This is why you are full of it, because you think everyone who supports wilderness preservation and a conservative attitude toward wilderness and wildlife are "global warming alarmists."
A projected wave of extinctions of plant and animal species this century may have been overestimated because the most widely used scientific method can exaggerate losses by more than 160 percent, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature