
This Graphic form NASA
shows surface temperature increases
shows
Global warming
shows Climate change
The threat of GLOBAL WARMING
is NOT
that it gets a few degrees warmer..
The threats are:
Higher food prices
Scarce drinking water
More violent storms
More flooding
More Earth Quakes
Higher sea levels through melting ice
and through expanding water volume
More illegal immigrants
More starving humans
Update from 26 climatologists—including 14 IPCC members.
Sea levels could rise and methane-laden arctic permafrost could melt much sooner than the panel had anticipated.
The essence of the new report is that things are grimmer than the IPCC has reported. The 2007 report concluded that the warming-induced melting of the Greenland ice sheet could create significant sea-level rise in this century,
that sea level rise could be 1.9 mm.
The new diagnosis finds that arctic sea ice is melting 40 % faster than the panel estimated just a few years ago.
Satellites have found that the global average for rising sea levels was 3.4 millimeters per year from 1993-2008.
The report clearly states: *if global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2°C above pre-industrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly.*
You see that our prognosis from 2004, which was attacked by many,
was not faulty at all.
Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were nearly 40 % higher than those in 1990. Even if global emission rates are stabilized at present-day levels, just 20 more years of emissions would give a 25 percent probability that warming exceeds 2°C, even with zero emissions after 2030. Every year of delayed action increases the chances of exceeding 2°C warming.
Recent global temperatures demonstrate human-induced warming:
Over the past 25 years temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.19°C per decade. Natural, short-term fluctuations are occurring as usual, but there have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend.
Acceleration of melting of ice-sheets, glaciers and ice-caps can be seen on a wide array of satellite and ice measurements. The Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in other parts of the Earth has also accelerated since 1990.
Summer-time melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models. The area of sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40 % greater than the average prediction from IPCC AR4 climate models.
Satellites show recent global average sea-level rise by 3.4 mm/yr over the past 15 years. This acceleration in sea-level rise is consistent with a doubling in contribution from melting of glaciers, ice caps, and the Greenland and West-Antarctic ice-sheets.
Our climate system is vulnerable. Earth's continental ice-sheets, Amazon rainforest, West African monsoon and others is pushed towards abrupt or irreversible change if warming continues. The risk of transgressing critical thresholds (*tipping points) increases strongly with ongoing climate change.
Climate change and global warming
will effect us all:
More extreme weather - Increased evaporation
more damage to houses and forests
Destabilization of local climates
Sea level rise + Temperature rise
Acidification +
Shutdown of thermohaline circulation
Ecological productivity + Glacier retreat
Methane release from melting
permafrost peat bogs
Methane release from hydrates
Retreat of sea Ice + habitat loss for wildlife
Glacier retreat + scarce drinking water
Forest fires + Spread of diseases
Insurance gets more expensive
Transport gets more expensive
Flood defense gets more expensive
Migration of billions of humans
Water scarcity + Water will be more expensive
Droughts will make food much more expensive
The global carbon dioxide emissions increased by 35% from the burning of fossil fuels since the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1992.
The average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in
2009 was 388 ppm.
CO2 levels that high have been never measured before.
Before humans were building
factories = production facilities
and before humans were
burning fossil fuels in cars and trucks and in their houses
the average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 260 - 280 ppm.
Carbon dioxide stays 50 to 200 years in the Earth's atmosphere
before it can be absorbed into carbon sinks.

2008's the Arctic seasonal sea ice melt
outpaced normal levels by 34%
Increase in the rate of
Greenland's ice melt increased 71% over the last five years.
Seasons are coming earlier every year, now with an average of 1.8 days.
The pine beetle, which is better able to survive
warmer winters and is wreaking havoc in America's western forests and has destroyed already 1.6 million acres in Colorado.
The oil and coal industries spent $427 million
in the first 6 months of 2008
in political contributions,
in lobbying expenditures and advertising
to oppose climate change action.
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