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Scientists say get ready for a hotter planet

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punkrockpriestess
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« on: January 24, 2008, 02:54:40 am »

Scientists say get ready for a hotter planet
Margaret Munro ,  CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, November 09, 2007
United Nations' science advisers have boiled down their landmark climate report to one simple message -- prepare for a hotter world while slashing greenhouse gas emissions.

A draft of the team's final report, to be fine-tuned at an international meeting that begins in Spain Monday, says there is no quick fix for the planetary meltdown threatening everything from Arctic ecosystems to boreal forests and coral reefs.

But there are "many options" for reducing emissions, says the report obtained by CanWest News Service. It highlights the need for "effective" incentives and international "co-operation" to slash greenhouse gases. It also suggests the world had best prepare for wackier and more extreme weather as well as rising sea levels, expected to slowly drown low-lying and sometimes heavily populated regions.


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Font:****The so-called "synthesis" report is the fourth and final volume of Climate Change 2007, prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that includes hundreds of scientists around the world. The IPCC jointly won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore for increasing knowledge on man-made climate change.

The synthesis sums up the three reports released earlier this year and is "explicitly targeted" at policy-makers who meet in Bali in December to discuss curbing mankind's ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Government delegates will comb through the synthesis report line-by-line next week in Valencia, Spain, before approving and releasing the final text next Saturday.

The report is said to understate the danger since alarming new evidence missed the deadline for inclusion. It does not, for example, include data showing global emissions are now climbing faster than ever as China and India power their economic booms with fossil fuels. And there is no mention of this summer's Arctic ice retreat, described as "astounding" by scientists and government officials who fear the Arctic may be hitting a "tipping point."

The draft, dated May 15, 2007, includes a 21-page summary and various chapters spelling out IPCC findings. The scientific authors weighed their words carefully and even have rules for the use of loaded phrases - "virtually certain" means greater than 99 per cent probability, "very likely" more than 90 per cent probability, "likely" more than 66 per cent probability, while "exceptionally unlikely" is less than one per cent probability.

The synthesis may not include the most recent data on ice or emissions, but it leaves little doubt the scientists believe there is ominous change underway.

"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level," it says.

"The warming is widespread over the globe, with a maximum at high northern latitudes," says the report, noting Arctic temperatures have risen at almost twice the global average. It says the evidence of change is seen on "all continents and most oceans."

And humanity is clearly implicated: "Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values determined from ice cores spanning many thousands of years."

It goes on to say most of the increase in temperatures since the mid-20th century is "very likely" due to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, produced largely through the burning of fossil fuels.
 
The scientists expect the warming and sea level rise to continue for centuries even if greenhouse gases are stabilized because of time scales associated with climate processes and feedbacks.

And they warn of irreversible impacts. "There is medium confidence that approximately 20-30 per cent of species assessed so far are likely to be at increasing risk of extinction if increases in global average warming exceed 1.5-2.5 degrees Celsius." Warming of at least two degrees is considered a near certainly this century based on IPCC climate models.

Models also forecast the " almost entire disappearance" of Arctic late-summer sea ice by the latter part of the 21st century, and more thawing of the permafrost, which covers much of Northern Canada. They also predict more extreme weather, shifts in storm tracks and rainfall patterns, and steadily rising sea level.

The draft stresses much can be done to curb emissions.

"There is high agreement and much evidence that there are many options for achieving reductions of global greenhouse gas emissions at the international level through co-operation," it says.

"A portfolio of technologies that are currently available" can be put to work reducing emissions given "appropriate and effective incentives,", it says, noting that potential for huge gains in energy efficiency.

But since much of the change is unstoppable, the report says countries also need to adapt: "Many impacts can be avoided, reduced or delayed by mitigation, but adaptation is also necessary."   




© CanWest News Service 2007
 
http://www.canada.com/topics/technology/science/story.html?id=bebdd79c-a80b-4bb8-9def-dd79884ea175
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Volitzer
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« Reply #1 on: March 19, 2008, 04:22:41 pm »

Bull$#!t there are record low temperatures being recorded this year in Canada, America and China.

Stop buying the NWO scam for global carbon taxes.
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