Global Warming Report
 

Hi All,

The Summary of the IPCC report on global warming is out.

See www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

Makes for interesting reading.

Summers in Europe are projected to be dryer for the next 100 years, while winters will be wetter.

((I))

Could do with some rain on my vineyard in NW Italy at the moment - we are in the middle of a drought!

Hi PP,

You might want to consider plantng some vines from Sicily. :)

Thanks for the morning chuckle. :-) ((b))

Global warming:

One more reason to get in as much Venice as you can before the “high water” becomes ... glub, glub

From p.12 of the report ira cites:

"Anthropogenic warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries due to the timescales associated with climate processes and feedbacks, even if greenhouse gas concentrations were to be stabilized."

If one observes how long it takes for the indoor temperature of any large commercial facility to reequilibrate after a major external temperature swing ( my local sports facility takes up to two days) it is easy to grasp how the consortium came to that conclusion. Extrapolating from such facilities, which are infinitesmally small compared to the area of the Earth's surface and the volume of its oceans, and one would readily conclude that the time lag before the Earth's temperatures could stabilize after major changes in the ozone layer, etc. would be proportionately long, very long.

This is why I have long felt that cherry-picking this or that unpopular energy use to condemn (SUVs, illumination of city monuments, etc.) simply distracts from the immediate problem that is far more pressing: learning to live with the effects of climate change, howsoever caused. In the meantime, while energy conservation is always a wise policy, it is only reasonable to keep in proportion the kinds of effects one can expect to achieve in the near future. Turning off a single light in my sports facility - whilst a noble and even reasonable idea in principle - won't help it cool down noticably faster, in the event the outside temperature swings upward (which it just has.)

A good and workable plan requires realistic expectations of environmental feedback to any alteration in energy use.

I don't get hot about global warming, its the coming ice age that chills me to the bone.

Quote from the White House

<<< Sharon Hays, Associate Director of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy said that the report was a "comprehensive and accurate" presentation of climate science and that President George Bush’s policies, braking the rise of emissions rather than cutting them, were working.

"The President has put in place a comprehensive set of policies to address what he has called the ’serious challenge’ of climate change." >>>

I'm assuming that the denizens of White House are either reading a different report or they are out of their tiny little skulls on someone GWB has saved for a rainy day.

Still, Bush will not sign the Kyoto agreement. What a mind blowing decision. We need to join the table and do our part to help curb the effects for later generations.

The global warming report comes at the same time that scientists are declaring once more in the press that the Bush Administration has systematically compromised their findings, by changing the wording of the reports they’ve written or by ‘persuading” them to come to more Bush-friendly “scientific” conclusions.

Have a look at this article from the Grauniad which guides you through a cacluation of your carbon footprint.
http://tinyurl.com/2m4tf8

Must admit that I was feeling pretty smug as I worked my way through calculations for heating and gas/petrol - even the consumption part was not bad. But then I went to the flying part
chooseclimate.org/flying

Not really much point in doing all the other calculations becuase the carbon footprint from my flights in the last 12 months blew it all out of the water.

Quite depressing

The Kyoto Agreement is a feel-good, political document. When you get into the fine print it accomplishes very little--e.g., major increasing polluters like China and India were basically allowed to pollute all they want just so they would sign. Much more agressive measures are needed.

Two comments on RufusT's contentions:

Of course Kyoto isn't enough, but it's the basis for Plan B (and C and D and E, as more evidence accumulates). By removing ourselves from Kyoto, we moved to the sidelines of the global playing field, which is a shame. Right when true leadership was most needed.

As for India, China, and Kyoto: India and China will certainly have to participate to reduce climate change impacts. There's an international principle that applies: "common but differentiated responsibilties." All countries need to participate, but not all in the same way. Participation should be proportionate to resources and responsibility.

Speaking of which -- in 2003, US emitted 20 (or 23.5, depending on the source) metric tonnes of CO2 per capita. China: 3.2 tonnes per capita. India: 1.2 tonnes. It's not hard to imagine these countries asking why they should reduce emissions if the US won't. Which returns us to that leadership issue. . .

The White House is more concerned about POSSIBLE job losses than doing anything.

As I said several years ago when Bush first put his head in the sand, you don't have to believe in Climate Change to make money from it.

Not that it would occur to GWB and his fellow vultures

Countries can sign anything they want...but here are the facts:

http://tinyurl.com/fp6lx

If you are at all serious about this subject, I trust that you are writing your Congressmen and petitioning the use of Nuclear Energy...just like France who gets more than 70% of their power from this source. Think of how clean it is compared to coal!

How did ira's link to a report by a United Nations agency based in Switzerland turn into a discussion about American politics?

Does nobody actually want to discuss the report itself, and the science behind it? (There's enough acronyms and graphs in there to keep anyone busy, I would have thought. Or is that the problem, that the report is too technical?)

Anybody? Ira? (After all, you raised the topic.)

There are numerous websites that illustrate how nuclear energy is not the "carbon saint" it's made out to be. For example, how does one get uranium? Answer: dig it up with big (diesel) shovels and trucks, treat the rock with sulfuric acid (made using LOTS of energy).
Further, the 3 fastest growing economies in the world (China, India, Brazil), although signatories, have no requirement to reduce carbon dioxide emission whatsoever. So, they're free to build, and are building, coal burning power plants without scrubbers or similar technology to power their growth.
This is not to say there may not be global warming (if we don't take steps to reverse it, Greenland will have gardens again as it did in Lief Ericson
s day, 1000 AD), but the controls ought to weigh equally on all parties.

It's scary! Consider the efect on the climate in Europe of a southward shift in the Gulf Stream as the Greenland Ice Cap melts and cold, fresh water spills southward. A similar thing will happen as the larger, Antartic Ice Cap melts in the Southern hemisphere. Storm tracks will traverse the Continents at more southerly latitudes; what are now deserts (N. Africa, for example) will bloom.

The cold, fresh water underrunning salt water in the oceans will doom a lot of marine life.

Magnitude and dimensions of problems caused by global warming are unfathomable. A multidisciplinary group such as the Department of Policy Sciences at the University of Oklahoma should be awarded a Grant to identify and study as many of the Dimensions of this problem as possible.

If President Bush doesn't take this seriously enough, Congress has an Office of Technology Assessment that brings together experts as needed to explore and define Impacts of various technologies. I was priviledged to serve as a member of one of those panels 20-years ago.
BTW
I think Ira did well posting the URL of the IPCC Report.

I can't get too excited about this. 30 years ago Time magazine discussed in an article how the consensus was that a new Ice age was coming...... Now, the crisis du jour is "Global Warming". Even if it's happening, why is it so bad? Maybe some places that were useless to grow crops will now be able to.

As always in these kinds of posts, the facts get skewed based on a posters political position. To set the record straight:

The United States, although a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, has neither ratified nor withdrawn from the Protocol. The signature alone is symbolic, as the Kyoto Protocol is non-binding on the United States unless ratified.

On July 25, 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was finalized (although it had been fully negotiated, and a penultimate draft was finished), the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95–0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States".

On November 12, 1998, Vice President Al Gore (not Bill Clinton) symbolically signed the protocol. Both Gore and Senator Joseph Lieberman then indicated that the protocol would not be acted upon in the Senate until there was participation by the developing nations. Thereafter, the Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification.

Since taking office in 2001, George W. Bush, has indicated that he also does not intend to submit the treaty for ratification, not because he does not support the Kyoto principles, but because of the exemption granted to China, the world's second largest emitter of carbon dioxide (The United States is, as of 2005, the largest single emitter of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels). Bush also opposes the treaty because of the strain he believes the treaty would put on the economy; and he emphasizes the uncertainties which he asserts are still present in the climate change issue.

Just a quick question...if they cannot even predict the weather accurately 5 to 10 days out, how can they know what will take place in years to come....?

"Now, the crisis du jour is "Global Warming"."

What a mentality. Ever heard of "better data than we had 30 years ago?"

Robespierre,

Refer to Wren's comment above. Better dat indeed... LOL!!!!

Here in the world's driest continent we'll get more rain in the tropical north, where it's not needed, and less where most of us live, where it's desperately needed. Major cities in the southeast of the country, including my own, have already implemented stringent water use restrictions which may well become draconian (saying goodbye to those green lawns may be the least of our problems). Dam levels are low and falling, and farmers and graziers are being forced off land that was once productive but is now a dustbowl.

For years the ostrich brigade has been in denial, hoping it will all go away so we can continue with business as usual. We can't, and at last even the troglodytes among us are beginning to wake up. As Governor Schwarzenegger said recently, "the debate is over". The party is over, folks, and it doesn't matter whether we like it or not.

I have always thought ignorance was bliss until I heard the report characterized as "amusing" and then I realized how powerful self-satisfaction really is.

I wrote, from a Northern Hemisphere perspective:
"Storm tracks will traverse the Continents at more southerly latitudes; what are now deserts (N. Africa, for example) will bloom."
That should have read: "at lower latitudes." When polar storm tracks dip to Equatorial laritudes, no one can predict the weather that will accompany them.

But every Climatologist & Meteorologist I know agrees that Global Warming is happening. They just haven't arrived at a consenses conclusion concerning the catastrophic weather events in our future.

>in 2003, US emitted 20 ...metric tonnes of CO2 per capita. China: 3.2 tonnes per capita.<

US has 3 x 10^8 people = 6 x 10^9 tonnes.

China has 10^9 people = 3 x 10^9 tonnes.

China has 1/6 the GDP of the US.

Thus, China emits 3x the Carbon per unit of production.

The same is true for India.

((I))

Hi Sue,

Re the report:

1. The data are much better now.

2. The consensus is that a major fraction of the warming trend in the last 50 years has been due to "anthropogenic causes" - ie, we're doing it.

(This is important, because last time the figures ranged from 10% to 60%.)

3. Even if the world reduces its output of carbon emissions to 2000 levels, the Earth will still warm up for the next 1000 years.

(Unless we have another Ice Age)

4. If we don't reduce Carbon emissions, the world will heat up faster.

5. Explicit in the data, but not addressed, is the fact that the Earth has been warming for about 12,000 years independent of humans.

6. Over the next 100 years, in much of the world, Summers are going to become dryer, Winters are going to become wetter.

7. The oceans are likely to rise about 1 meter over the next 100 years.

The consequences of this will be discussed in a later report.

The report summary doesn't address the effects of destroying the tropical rain forests.

My own thoughts:

Europeans (this is the Europe Forum) are going to be installing more AC capacity.

The High Season will be extended to March through November.

Hotter Summers won't change travel patterns as long as the kids are out of school.

((I))

President Chirac has called for "a new environmental body that could single out — and perhaps police — nations that abuse the Earth".

See http://tinyurl.com/yvqrfc

((I))

The USA is expected to increase its population to 400,000,000 by 2020 or so. So just to stay even with present energy usage rates everyone needs to reduce their activities 25%. The world population is increasing at a rate of 80,000,000 per year. How soon 'Armageddon'?

I have a suggestion for all of you so worried: boycott traveling to Europe. That way you will force airlines to cut down on their flights.

cruiseluv, you big spoil sport! Don't you know talk is more important than action and its the other guy who has to cut back! Next thing you know, you will be asking us to give up SUVs and not build 6,0000 foot mansions!

More doom and gloom.

I really think these 'expert' reports are just that ..'reports' They don't know for sure what the reasons for anything happening are.

The only facts there are is that the ice age began about 80million years ago and by 10 million years ago had ended. The world has been evolving and continuing to change ever since.

Now forgive me for being cynical, but I don't ever remember reading about humans flying around the world or driving big gutsy cars, polluting the atmosphere or even being around between 80 and 10 million years ago.

So to think that suddenly we have destroyed the environment and it is this that is calling global warming, to me is pants.

The world is evolving, getting warmer, it probably would have done anyway.

Oh and the governments of this world respond in the ONLY way they know how, they increase taxes. For what exactly??

Muck

Muck, give it up! Just hand over all your money to the government and trust that they will make logical and effcient decisions that are good for all citizens.

What I want to know is how global warming will affect skirt lengths in the coming season.

Global Warming sponsered by Prada. :)

Northshore,LOL!!

I already gave up my 6,000 ft. mansion... do I also have to give up my Hummer?
Next time I want to go to Europe I'll try an inner tube.

Well, if this winter is an example of winters to come, the term "apres ski" will be a thing of the past.

Hi Mucky,

I think that the last Ice Age ended between 25,000 and 12,000 years ago.

It was probably all those Neanderthal and Cro Magnon cooking fires that did it.

((I))

Sorry Northshore, I already gave them everything I have.

Ira,
It was definately 10 million years ago. An expert wrote a report about it, so it must have been right !!
And besides, my mother in law remembers it . She was there.

;-)

Muck

Mucky, your post conjures up a number of images - complacency, wishful thinking and whistling in the dark among them. The fact that we would prefer to believe it's not happening does not, alas, mean it's not happening. I'd like to believe it's nothing but scaremongering too, but the evidence is now overwhelming: it IS happening, and human activity is the major cause. We'll have a great deal more to worry about than increased taxes, believe me - or rather, our grandchildren will. Dealing with tens, possibly hundreds, of millions of refugees will be just one of them.