ON EDIT: Headline changed, 2nd article appended.
Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory predicted a significant increase in average air temperature over the long term - iceless polar regions, 40 degrees Fahrenheit warmer, and a 20-foot rise in ocean sea levels by the year 2300. A new study uses a series of interlinked computer models, including a LLNL model that connects carbon input with climate, an ocean-atmosphere model from National Center for Atmospheric Research, and the Parallel Ocean Program (POP) from Los Alamos National Laboratory that simulates ocean circulation.
"The study will at least shift the focus of debate away from the question whether climate change will happen or not," said lead author Govindasamy Bala of the LLNL Energy and Environment Directorate. "We may still be OK by 2050, let's say, but in the long term, if we keep on with business as usual, the consequences will be very severe." Recent studies have concentrated on a modest warming trend over the next century, but the new projection looks beyond the horizon at the 22nd and 23rd centuries when warming impacts have built up a head of steam, nearly quadrupling the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from 380 parts per billion to 1,423 ppb in 300 years.
With visions of pine trees invading the melted ice caps from the subarctic areas of the Russian tundra and the Canadian north, the researchers call their conclusions "alarming." The ability of land and ocean eco-systems to absorb excess carbon will progressively fail, so that the greater the carbon burden, the worse its warming affects will be, according to the research.
The model assumes the consumption of all currently known fossil fuels - conventional coal, oil and natural gas - beyond previous models that imagined doubled or quadrupled carbon emissions.
EDIT
http://www.lamonitor.com/articles/2005/11/02/headline_news/news01.txtHave a nice day!!
ON EDIT: Please note some skepticism on my part regarding this story's opening paragraph - I've heard 14, and now 40, which as Phantom Power points out may be a editorial screwup rather than a model result. This article also discusses CO2 in terms of parts per billion, which is incorrect.
2nd Article:
If humanity taps all known oil, gas and coal reserves for energy, plants and oceans will have trouble absorbing the growing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and temperatures will soar beyond current projections, virtually eliminating tundra, sea ice and cold climate forests, according to a study by Lawrence Livermore Lab researchers.
Scientists there asked supercomputers to simulate the complete burnout of all fossil fuels and the resulting changes in climate through 2300, two centuries longer than almost any other climate study.
What they found was a dramatically changed world, with temperatures rising an average of 14.5 degrees worldwide and 68 degrees or more in polar regions. Bala Govindasamy, a Livermore atmospheric scientist and lead author of the study, said the simulation is highly conservative: It probably overestimates the ability of plants to absorb carbon dioxide and so underestimates the climate change. "So the reality may be worse," he said.
The greatest warming occurs in the next century, beyond the time frame for most climate projections, when carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere reach 1,000 parts per million, or nearly four times pre-industrial concentrations, in about 2140, then peak in 2300 at
1,438 parts per million.
Scientists are uncertain how well societies can adapt to a doubling or tripling of carbon dioxide, but there is growing consensus that a quadrupling would pose major challenges.
EDIT
http://www.insidebayarea.com/localnews/ci_3177788My apologies for any confusion and hyperbole!
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