04 How bad are the recent warnings on climate change?
The latest IPCC Report predicts a 2ºC rise in global temperature but the latest scientific evidence says it might be more than twice as high as that.The latest predictions from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) using better prediction methods claims that global temperatures, if we do nothing, will rise more than double their previous predictions to 5.2 C with a range of 3.5 C to 7.4 C at 90%.
Go to: New MIT 5.2C predictions - Journal of Climate reference.
23/5/2009 ScienceBlogs.com by Greg Laden -Extract - gives reference details.In another study not available to me but coming out in the same journal in a few days, the overall effects of climate change are predicted to be much worse than previously thought.
This is based on MIT’s Integrated Global Systems Model, which is a computer simulation of both global economic activity and climatic systems. This mega-simulation was run 400 times using slight variations in input parameters. According to a press release:
The new projections… indicate a median probability of surface warming of 5.2 degrees Celsius by 2100, with a 90% probability range of 3.5 to 7.4 degrees. This can be compared to a median projected increase in the [previous major study, conducted in 2003 … of just 2.4 degrees. The difference is caused by several factors rather than any single big change. Among these are improved economic modeling and newer economic data showing less chance of low emissions than had been projected in the earlier scenarios. Other changes include accounting for the past masking of underlying warming by the cooling induced by 20th century volcanoes, and for emissions of soot, which can add to the warming effect. In addition, measurements of deep ocean temperature rises, which enable estimates of how fast heat and carbon dioxide are removed from the atmosphere and transferred to the ocean depths, imply lower transfer rates than previously estimated.
Journal of Climate, 22 (9) DOI: 10.1175/2008JCLI2678.1
Go to: New MIT 5.2C predictions - Journal of Climate reference.Go to:http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2009/05/new_global_warming_predictions.php?utm_source=sbhomepage&utm_medium=link&utm_content=channellink
See the full Report in Documents.