FT - How global warming could suddenly tip over and ignite calamity

[tex-wyo-dem]

The heat is on: how global warming could suddenly tip over and ignite calamity

by Fiona Harvey
Financial Times
September 20, 2006

Scientists at Nasa, instead of staring into the skies, have been using satellites to look down at the world and track how it is changing. Within a year, the US space agency disclosed this week, an area of sea ice "the size of Texas" had been lost from the Arctic.

Data pieced together by Nasa showed that Arctic perennial sea ice, which normally survives the summer melting season, abruptly shrank by 14 per cent between
2004 and 2005. The report found: "Perennial ice can be 10 or more feet thick. It was replaced by new, seasonal ice only one to seven feet thick that is more vulnerable to summer melt."

<snip>

But will that be soon enough? A growing body of scientific opinion suggests the world may be about to experience not a gradual rise in temperatures over several decades but a wild careering into climate chaos.

That is because some of the changes triggered by warming temperatures create a "feedback" effect of their own. These feedbacks can cause the warming trend to accelerate further or bring serious disruption to regions of the world (see box).

<more>

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=56&ItemID=11008

[orwell]

1. No worries...

According to Czech President Vaclav Kraus this is all "senseless fiction."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x67886

It's so comforting to know that great leaders like Vaclav, Georgie & the Neos, Exxon/Mobil are in charge. They won't let anything bad happen. I'm sure.

I'm sure...

[tex-wyo-dem]

2. At least there will be plenty of profits to realize from calamity...

Look at the windfall that's been made in Iraq...:mad:

[phantom power]

3. It's already started.

[hunter]

4. Scientific opinion has certainly tipped...

From the geologic record it's pretty clear the Earth has two stable climates: cold and icy, or hot and dry.

In terms of bioproductivity a cold icy climate is much richer than a hot and dry climate.

By our use of fossil fuels we've probably managed to tip a cold icy climate to a hot dry climate.

A lot of people may starve. Some Canadians are probably going to look at U.S. citizens the same way some U.S. citizens now look at Mexicans.

Go back to Kansas, we don't want your kind here."