Climate Breakdown Racing Ahead As IPCC Prepares Definitive 2007 Report

[hatrack]

EDIT

Meanwhile, several climate research studies released in December show that the impacts of climate change are coming faster than predicted. This suggests that the worst case disaster scenarios may be the most likely unless there is concerted global action to reduce emissions. Satellite photos taken this year revealed that there was 20 percent less Arctic sea ice compared to the first pictures taken in 1978, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado. The loss of ice is not too surprising given the four degrees C rise in average winter temperatures in the Arctic. However, the extent and speed with which the Arctic ice is melting is unprecedented.

And that's not just bad news for polar bears and native people of the North. "The Arctic is a major driver for Earth's weather cycle. we see is going to be very profound in terms of global weather change," said Ted Scambos, a research scientist at the NSIDC. Those changes are impossible to predict with precision, but Scambos believes that the sea ice will continue to melt. The loss of sea ice appears to have triggered a major feedback loop because there is less ice and snow to reflect the sun's energy, making the region ever warmer. "We think that these feedbacks are starting to take hold and that we're going to see an accelerated decline in sea ice," Scambos said in a release.

Warmer temperatures are also thawing the top three metres of permafrost beneath the western Siberian peatlands, creating giant lakes and swelling rivers. Permafrost is also melting in Alaska and northern Canada. A new study predicts that over half of the northern hemisphere's permafrost could thaw by 2050. The melting of millions of square kilometres of permafrost will unleash billions of tonnes of methane, the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) reported in the Dec. 17 issue of Geophysical Research Letters. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, and will dramatically accelerate global warming. A major permafrost meltdown will have a major impact on climate, NCAR scientists said. The first direct measures of Greenland's massive ice sheets released in December found that they lost 162 cubic kilometres of ice a year between 2002 and 2005. This is higher than all previous estimates and is contributing to rising sea levels, scientists from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration reported.

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Despite those studies, the public will have to pressure politicians to take action, said Elliot Diringer of the Pew Centre on Climate Change, a U.S.-based NGO. "The Europeans want to talk about how get to global emission reductions of 60 percent but the U.S. is a long way from even thinking about that," Diringer told IPS. "It's going to take a 'perfect storm' of political alignment and public pressure to turn this around." That "perfect storm" may come over the next two years as thousands of climate scientists finalise a series of studies and reports that will become the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate synthesis report. The IPCC's 2007 report will be the authoritative and complete assessment of climate change and its impacts. And it's unlikely to have much in the way of good news. "It will be much more difficult for politicians not to take concrete action when that comes out," said Marshall.

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http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31589

[Teaser]

1. Politicians are going to be hung from the streetlights

in 50 years, when all the shit starts to hit the fan.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. Fifty?

Major changes are imminent.

How we will handle them is the make-or-break factor. If we're hanging politicians, we might as well hang ourselves as well.

--p!

[brokensymmetry]

6. Fifty? How about 10 if we're lucky?

We're barely feeding the present population of Earth. What happens as climate change impacts crop yields? Mass starvation, perhaps? And famine's handmaidens are pestilence and war.

Toss in a little peak oil and some resource wars, and you have a deadly cocktail.

Truth be told, I expect things to start heating up (pun intended) in five years...

[NNadir]

3. The IPCC reports are excellent, if depressing.

The 2001 editions were comprehensive and, I thought, very fair and realistic. It is no wonder that they've been totally ignored.

I can't wait to read the updated edition, although my impatience is tempered with trepidation. Hopefully I won't feel like dying then and there.

[bemildred]

4. I would suggest that it's silly to think this process is reversible.

These are chaotic systems, and we have precipitated a "catastrophe", in the technical sense of that word. It certainly makes sense to try to understand it better, and to reverse the "stimulus" we gave it, but change is coming and it won't be gradual.

[Boomer]

5. Presents some difficult choices

I also agree that it's probably too late to reverse the changes that are already in process. So do we completely disrupt our economy and social structure to dramatically reduce emissions or do we put our focus on surviving the climate upheavals?

Realistically, I doubt we could do both. But then, realistically, I doubt we will do either.

[bemildred]

7. A couple comments:

a.) Things are going to be disrupted anyway. The main advantage of addressing our hydrocarbon addiction is increased freedom of action as things get worse. That is, we will have better control of our situation in the future if we take steps to reduce our vulnerabilities now.

b.) I see no reason to think the necessary sort of command authority exists at present, at least in the USA. The US is a corrupt and decadent empire in decline, and the top level government is completely alienated from the populace at large, relying on and living in an imaginary propaganda universe. Any attempt to begin to address these issues in a proactive way will require, first, a return to reality-based governance that is responsive to the needs of the citizenry, and the rebuilding of the social compact on which any functioning and durable politics must be based.