UK climate expert warns of 3-5 degree warmer world by 2100
The current goals for limiting climate change to a two-degree rise in global temperatures will not be met, and the planet should prepare for twice that rise in temperature and maybe more according to Sir Robert Watson, former head of the IPCC and former Chief Scientific Adviser for the UK's Department for Environment, Food and …
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Re: complete nonsense
Well, in brief my opinion is that if we liberate additional CO2 then we are of course adding to any non-anthropogenic warming. I do however remain wholly unconvinced in respect of CAGW.
On a different tack, I'd be interested to know why the down voters seem to disagree with my initial response. Is it because they are simplistic in their outlook and think that global warming means that everywhere gets warmer with immediate effect or is it that they take exception to models that predict colder winters for the UK for a while as a direct result of a global warming trend?
yes but will we still have football 4/5 nights a week?!
will they still be able to play cricket?!
these are the important questions we need answers to ASAP before committing down either path!!!!111
Question
I quote:
"We think we've got a 50/50 shot at best of a three degree world, and we think it's not at all unlikely that we'll reach a five degree world. It cannot be ruled out," he warned.
In that scenario the amount of carbon that the oceans would have to absorb would acidify them to such an extent that coral reefs would start to dissolve he said. Marine life, and particularly shellfish, would be hard-hit, and the overall effect of climate change on biodiversity would be massive, with 50 per cent of current species going to the wall with a five degree temperature rise.
Then look at the graph underneath it. The blatant error here is that the graph is not in degrees, its in CO2 with the assumed but proven wrong direct relation to temperature rise. So species will die out based on temperature, but here is a graph about co2 instead.
This is not to say we have no effect but there isnt a direct link between the temperature changes and co2. It may be a contributing factor (how much is debatable) but it is not the determining force as proven by climate models generally overestimating the doomsday effects. This is because a lot of the actual needed information to accurately predict these changes is UNKNOWN.
So based on what looks to be a completely wrong assumption he then furthers this by assuming the damages to crops and species. But wait. GM crops changed the world by providing a better food resource and the point is that technology and capability advance and so we survive. This assumption of technological numptyism is made even though he acknowledges the following advancement-
"The situation could have been worse, but for an easing in global population levels. By 2100 there are predicted to be 9-10 billion people on the planet, compared to the 15-17 billion forecast 20 years ago. Efforts to educate girls, empower women and make sure "culturally available forms of contraception are available to all," are the best tools to cut this further he said."
So we look at the next section talking about china. A place that does what it wants for its own ends to look after their own interests. And as you look at the graph you see their output shooting up, but remember that large portions of china are still underdeveloped. The cities and well built areas only account for a section of china. So if china decides to upgrade the whole country you have a situation whereby that line shoots up higher. Can you imagine them trying to power any of that using turbines? What a joke. So a clean air china is a nuclear china but this is a time of recession and limited funds. But plenty cheap fossil fuel. So assuming a thinking country (as they are) with any intelligence at all (they do) they would not follow the US into an unsustainable future. They would likely take all the businesses and forward thinkers who get priced out of their own countries.
Then finally I see his comments of geo engineering. Sidestepping the flawed statement he makes that "We screwed up the planet by not understanding it" which is a statement from his perspective instead of factual, we are already talking about geo engineering. The natural change in climate happens, and deviation from that has actually yet to be proved (the extent that we are changing the climate is unknown). So this could be entirely natural and we are talking of geo engineering by blotting the land with wind turbines while reducing our co2 output. Unless of course he doesnt believe that reducing co2 output changes anything because then we wouldnt be geo engineering, and all this was a con.
Re: Question
People are down voting so obviously disagree. However they seem to be short on answers. Must be cultists (we disagree coz you say stuff what we dont likez)
No wonder climate science is stuck in the politics arena instead of the scientific community
"We screwed up the planet by not understanding it"
Actually, I'm pretty certain that the planet is doing just fine thanks. It would be fine if we put all the carbons we have out there! It would equally be quite happy if we set off all the nukes we have. Sure, it would be catastrophic for us but the planet will be perfectly happy.
Another Scientist suffering from TB
Talking Bollocks - that well known disease of politicians.
Some facts:
- The SUN warms our planet.
- NOBODY has PROVED "carbon emissions" affect the climate.
- Carbon Trading is a SCAM.
Re: Another Scientist suffering from TB
The sun warms our planet. Very astute of you, however it's the level to which the sun's warmth is retained that is key, not whether or not the sun shines.
Carbon emissions have been proved, repeatedly, to affect the climate. The exact extent of the effect is the problem that is very hard to model and with such long term ecosystems of enormous complexity, the only 100% accurate method is to sample everything for 100 years and then look back on the results. By then it's too late to do anything to prevent any unwanted changes during these 100 years of course. To make it harder, because the planetary ecosystem is so vast and diverse, even this would be unlikely to provide an accurate prediction of the next 100 years because new processes and feedback loops and cycles could come into play or existing ones could change relative importance due to interactions with other factors. So basically, it's an utter bastard to model and predict 100 years into the future, but what is known and proved is that there is something wrong, and this is likely to be disastrous for a lot of the life on the planet, including ourselves. The extent to which our reckless pollution of the planet is causing these changes directly and to what extent these changes are part of the planet's natural cycles is what is up for debate. We've already fucked the planet's nitrogen cycle through dumping excess nitrogen into the cycle, we're getting close to fucking up the carbon cycle as well through the same. The exact short and long term effects of knackering these important cycles is still unknown but it's unlikely to be good.
Carbon trading is a scam... now this is utterly correct. It's a banker / politicians "solution" while not solving anything whatsoever.
Re: Another Scientist suffering from TB
Don't feel that you have to let an ignorance of GCSE level physics prevent you from telling us what's "true" about global climate.
Re: Another Scientist suffering from TB
We are about 9 or 10 degrees ( 3% ) warmer than the 279 kelvin of a gray ball in our orbit . Our absolute temperature is apparently not known more accurately than that . Objects in our orbit have a temperature of about 1/21 whatever the sun decides to depending on their particular spectrum .
It is generally agreed we have warmed by perhaps 0.8 degrees ( 0.3% ) since we started using fossil fuels .
Perhaps our best data is our most recent , which shows that over the last decade and a half or so , CO2 has increased close to 9% , but our temperature not at all .
Re: Another Scientist suffering from TB
Surface temperature has increased by 0.085C/decade +-0.132C/decade in the last decade and a half.
More importantly ocean heat content has increased too, which is reflected in rising sea levels.
Issue with these models is...
the alarmist views from Climate Change people forces the governments (especially ours) to increase Climate Change taxes and spend money on various programmes...
For example,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/9722767/2bn-of-UK-aid-to-help-Third-World-go-green.html
Each household will contribute £70 to schemes to tackle climate change in developing countries before March 2015, under plans championed by Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat Energy Secretary.
The issue is the world as it stands is a very resilient planet and has been subject to multiple ice ages and global warming (when most of the planet was arid and dry) - that is based on fact from the geology (especially core drilling in Antarctica).
Climate Change is nothing more than a ruse to gain funding (for scientists - maybe a good thing...) and taxes for governments - which then get spent on programmes with little accountability. That £2bn will probably end up funding some impressive home renovations in other countries...
We need clean (and there is technology on this) to build better nuclear power stations to cope with population demand, better public transport to reduce number of individual vehicles, better investment in industry so people don't have to commute so far to work, cheaper transport costs for food (to avoid food inflation), less taxes to increase personal spend, easier visa and movement for professionals to move around the world to apply expertise (especially UK->US visa) ...etc...
Re: Issue with these models is...
Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat Energy Secretary.
Ah the Lib Dems again.. is it just me or are they like the crazy granny of the family (coalition) that should be locked up in the attic and not let out
Re: Issue with these models is...
The problem is amplified by the media, and the fight for funding.
Only catastrophic projections make headlines, which makes the "visible" climate change science biased toward catastrophe NEXT WEEK OMG!!!!111!! Of course the impending catastrophe does not happen, so the whole field is called into question.
Headlines attract funding (well, it's more that headline makers attract funding) so the circle continues.
There has been a lot of Bad Science on climate change, and a lot of very underhand and suspicious activity (witness University of East Anglia, for instance). That does not help with any serious science being given the page space to be read and understood.
I sort of see the point of the £70 each to help the third world, becuase if we in the UK shut up shop and stopped producing any pollutants then we'd make absolutely no difference to the CO2 at all, so encouraging others to clean up their act is a sound move. The bigger problem is, we can't afford it (hell we can barely afford anything) and I have no idea as to the viability of the potentially sponsored projects.
Surely £2bn towards, say, nuclear fusion research may have been better spent? As I understand it the physics is well understood, the majority of the difficulties lie with engineering. Oh, and the word "nuclear".
DOOMED!
We are all doomed. Repent and confess your sins to your one True God. My God is a glass of Rochefort 8, yumYUM! Is anyone else having a party on the 22nd Dec to celebrate that the Mayan Calendar doom-merchants were wrong? One of these days we may even get to have a "kick the environmentalists" party. <LOL>
"an Apollo project," he said – too big for any one nation to do on its own.
Is he talking about the Apollo project where the USA sent a man to the moon, or some other one I'm not aware of where lots of countries had to get together to do something? Otherwise it's a crap comparison.
oh look, another [alarmist] hockey stick graph...
see title
Being the CSA to DEFRA hardly qualifies this chap as someone who should be listened to
China and other developing nations MUST conform to EXISTING Western Emission standards...
There should be no more spending to reduce emissions from the developed Western nations until China, India and others meet already existing Western emission standards.
When a graph shows an 80 degree increasing slope like the one for China, no amount of change in the entire western world will effect the kind of CO2 & particulate reduction that will occur if minimal "easy" emission cleanup is done in China.
China needs good combustion controls & better burners, emission monitoring equipment, electrostatic precipitators & baghouses for their coal fired generating plants, catalytic convertors on auto exhausts, better quality low sulphur gasoline and fuel oil with low paraffin (wax) content. Convert to natural gas wherever possible. Keep public transit much cheaper than private automobiles and don't allow so much urban sprawl.
The only way any of this will happen is if their leadership either recognizes it must be done or the rest of the world agrees to place emission tarrifs on all goods from non-complying nations.
Re: China and other developing nations MUST conform to EXISTING Western Emission standards...
Don't know whether troll or just plain dumb.
> the rest of the world agrees to place emission tarrifs on all goods from non-complying nations.
The "rest of the world". Um. US+UK... anyone else? Hello. Oh yeah, Yurope can join too.
Yeah, it's good we have catalytic converters and particulate filters on all of our military hardware. One might suddenly fear we are not environmentally conscious. 1.2 million barrels of oil per month for years and years.... Yes we can.
UK needs to be warmer
My memories of the UK climate, especially in winter, makes me think a 3-5 degree warm up is insufficient. It really need an extra 10 degrees or so - crank up those carbon emissions!
Re: UK needs to be warmer
I am buried in snow and cannot get out onto balcony today. The snow has come quite early this year, and completely in line with normal snow storms, it's cold, dismal and nasty out there.
I think some of you have it wrong
There seems to be a number of people who apparently think global warming is akin to turning up the thermostat on their central heating system.
It is not.
Global warming means, among other things, that there is (not "will be", note) increasingly more energy in the global weather system. This means that global weather is increasingly more... well, energetic, I guess. Meaning more extreme weather events: more rain here, more drought there, less ice elsewhere, etc. Think "major climate change", over time. It should be obvious that this is not good, to say the least.
And BTW, "we survived this long" is a poor argument to make when discussing future prospects of humanity as a whole, let alone our civilization. For one thing "this long" is not, in fact, that long at all: a few million years out of even the 550 million since the Cambrian Explosion is nothing, really. For another thing, look up the word "change" in a dictionary...
Re: I think some of you have it wrong
Yet for all the claims that we will suffer worse weather, we dont seem to be getting any worse weather. It seems those who claim it has got worse are basing their statements on the models instead of actual observational and measurable events. As a result there seems to then follow claims of no change based on observations but by this point another claim of worse weather has been made, and again from the models.
Watson to Planet Earth
Bob Watson has been spouting this stuff for years.
When asked in 1997 at Kyoto, as the new IPCC Chairman, about the growing number of climate scientists who challenged the conclusions of the UN that man-induced global warming was real and promised cataclysmic consequences, he responded by denigrating all dissenting scientists as pawns of the fossil fuel industry. "The science is settled" he said, and "we're not going to reopen it here."
He worked for Al Gore in the Clinton White House as "Director of Mission to Planet Earth" and Gore calls him his "hero of the planet". He became Defra Chief Scientific Advisor and Director of Strategy at the propagandist Tyndall Centre in July 2007, not long after Al Gore was announced as an Advisor on Climate Change to Gordon Brown and he had been in the UK presenting his "Inconvenient Truth" film.
Within months of his new roles, he was already pushing the "4 degrees to disaster" story which he resurrects at regular intervals, as here: "The UK should take active steps to prepare for dangerous climate change of perhaps 4C according to one of the government's chief scientific advisers." Guardian, Aug 7th, 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/06/climatechange.scienceofclimatechange
Back in the real world
There is still a thriving colony of fairy penguins within 5 km of the heart of Australia's second biggest city. A few km down the coast the beaches I grew up on are more beautiful, cleaner and full of life than when I was a child 50 years ago and the air where I now live is consistently like wine. Subjective perhaps. The screechings of the climate-change alarmists become more ominous and the solutions proffered more bizarre and hideously expensive. The tricks and turns of these propagandists would make any 20th century wartime minister for information green with envy. The latest is " co-ordination" ( why does that word make me shudder ) of all emergency services under a politically appointed supremo - to deal with fire, flood, epidemic or whatever other climate-change induced disaster ( and here it all is ! ) the government of the day wants it to deal with. The platforms of our train system are patrolled by armed "Safety Officers " but you can't buy a ticket or use the toilets as there are no railway staff any more, or anywhere else for that matter, just goons with guns. The public infrastructure is being turned away from the public, given into the control of the cheapest tender to operate a license to print money. Has organised crime taken over ? - The mask keeps slipping...
Turn the lights on, and the telly and the stereo and the PC........etc......
I don't care, it's the future generation who will suffer, I'll be long gone!
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