"IPCC report may in fact be too rosy"

[Skybird]

News from the front in the war on climate:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...518231,00.html

The allegedly new climate bible is not even up to date. It dates back to the middle of 2006. The IPCC authors and experts looked at and assessed all the scientific literature in the field of climate research that had been published by that date. That had been the deadline from the beginning. But 15 months have passed since then.

And more recent reports, which were not mentioned in the Synthesis Report, mean that the picture the IPCC paints may in fact be too rosy:

• The global CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are increasing faster than ever. Since 2000 they are averaging a growth of more than 3 ppm (parts per million) a year. In previous decades the average was only 1.3 ppm. "Recent emissions seem to be near the high end of the fossil fuel use scenarios used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)," says Michael Raupach, the Australian physicist and leader of the Global Carbon Project.

• Around half of the anthropogenous CO2 emissions don't remain in the earth's atmosphere and are absorbed by the oceans and by plants. But these natural carbon reducers may have been overestimated. The forests of the mid-range and high northern latitudes probably absorb 40 percent less carbon dioxide than climate change calculations estimate, according to a multinational study recently published in Science magazine. Kevin Gurney, climate researcher at Purdue University in West Lafayette in the US, said it was wrong to assume that the biosphere will somehow come to the rescue. Trees can't absorb that much additional CO2, he said.

• Scientists are also taking a more cautious view of how much help the world's oceans can provide. Current measurements show that the North Sea's capacity to absorb CO2 is already declining. Belgian, Dutch, Canadian and US researchers referred to a "rapid decline in CO2 buffer capacity" in the Global Biogeochemical Cycles magazine. Other studies see a similar development in the entire North Atlantic.

• There is a steady decline in sea ice in the Artic Ocean each summer. At the beginning of October the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reported a new record low for 2007. The entire ice surface amounted to just 4.3 million square kilometers -- 23 percent down from 2005, the previous record season. The legendary Northwest Passage was found to be free of Arctic ice. The NSIDC researchers now expect the Arctic to be free of ice during the summer from 2030 onwards -- decades earlier than forecast in the climate projections referred to the new IPCC report which foresees ice-free Arctic summers in the latter part of the 21st century.

• The IPCC forecast for the further rise in ocean levels -- between 18 and 59 centimeters by 2099 depending on the level of CO2 emissions -- also looks too conservative now. A number of researchers say the figures need to be revised upwards because they fail to take an important aspect into account: The water flowing into the sea from melting glaciers will add to the rise in sea levels. The IPCC hasn't quantified that effect because it's unclear how strong it will be.

In this latter point at least the world climate body has given an update. It says the 59 centimeter increase should not be regarded as an upper limit because future rapid changes in ice flows have not been taken into account in the scenarios for rising ocean levels.

[Iceman]

A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.


Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.


Don't fear the reaper.

[Skybird]

You like scriptures? Here is one scripture for you , a long novel by Brian W. Aldiss, entitled "Helliconia". The three volumes are named "Spring", "Summer", "Winter", and the year being described in them in a SF-scenario that more compares to a story about the ancient time, the early and late medieval, and lasts for 2800 earth years. In it's seasonal cycles, two antagonistic civilisations wake, climb, fall, and go to sleep again, the one enjoying it's historic height, while the other suffers it's low.

This novel has a special place in my library, beside only a few others. the way it's many details on various levels are interacting and got interweaved (interwoven?) by the author, is complex, and stunning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helliconia

[Iceman]

Proverbs 4
[19] The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.

[Skybird]

Skybird '67, Insights (1, 1):

Their heads being knocked by those walls may come from their eyes never looking up from that map.