How to prepare a planet for global warming

Convinced the phenomenon is inevitable, some scientists now focus on coping with it.

By Peter N. Spotts | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Scientists have long warned that some level of global warming is a done deal - due in large part to heat-trapping greenhouse gases humans already have pumped skyward.

Now, however, researchers are fleshing out how much future warming and sea-level rise the world has triggered. The implicit message: "We can't stop this, so how do we live with it?" says Thomas Wigley, a climate researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo.

One group, led by Gerald Meehl at NCAR, used two state-of-the-art climate models to explore what could happen if the world had held atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases steady since 2000.

The results: Even if the world had slammed on the brakes five years ago, global average temperatures would rise by about 1 degree Fahrenheit by the end of the 21st century. Sea levels would rise by another 4 inches over 20th-century increases, just from expansion of the warming water. Rising sea-levels would continue well beyond 2100, even without adding water from melting glaciers and ice sheets. The rise highlights the oceans' enormous capacity to absorb heat and its slow reaction to changes in atmospheric conditions.
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http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0318/p02s02-usgn.html

Aren't we overdue for an ice age? :shrug: