UK Chief Scientist - Act Now On Carbon Dioxide - Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - "The world faces a surge in extreme weather events because of global warming and governments must act immediately to avert disaster, Britain's chief scientist said on Tuesday. "Already we are witnessing increased storms at sea and floods in our cities," David King said. "Global warming will increase the level and frequency at which we experience heightened weather patterns.

"Action is affordable. Inaction is not," he told the third Greenpeace Business Lecture in central London. King said levels of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, were at their highest ever and rising due primarily to the burning of fossil fuels at an unprecedented rate.

His comments came a day after scientists at Britain's Hadley Center revealed that CO2 levels in the atmosphere had risen in the past two years, prompting fears that catastrophic climate change could be out of control. However, although the CO2 spike had been registered across the world, scientists cautioned that it was too early to tell if it was an anomaly or if climate change had entered a new, explosive phase. "CO2 levels are up about two ppm (parts per million) in the past two years -- but it would be pushing it to say that it could be the start of runaway global warming," Kim Holmen at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research said.

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The Kyoto treaty on cutting CO2 emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012 is expected to come into force within months with crucial Russian backing after the United States refusal to endorse the treaty in 2001 led to years of delays. But scientists are divided on the treaty's efficacy and environmentalists say it is far too little, too late."

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http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=6480357§ion=news

And I wanted to sell out, I wanted to try
but you know that the sky got too low
and the ocean got too high
and I had to take God into my own hands
am I too late?
is it over?
have I sacrificed my family to the Great Unknown?
--Dar Williams

A self-sustaining cycle of CO₂ and methane generation/release has started; it's most appearant in the Arctic, where hundreds of thousands of hectares of previously frozen ground is now home to putrefactive and thermophilic microorganisms, which produce these "carbons" in great quantities. This past summer -- just a few weeks ago -- the Arctic was warmer than it had been in history, probably moreso than it has been since the warming phase of the Younger-Dryas event.

With the oceans becoming warmer, seabed methane clathrate ices are melting, releasing the methane. The big deposits south of the Aleutians seem to be quite active, and the surface water in that area was as much as 5F above normal as recently as late August.

And we -- the USA -- have been boycotting the Kyoto accords because it's too punitive, too harsh to aim for a 5% reduction in CO₂ release by 2012?

We've messed with the primal forces of nature for real this time. No way will we get off lightly.

I agree with Dr. King, we need to take action, but we should not expect things to go back to normal. We must turn our attention now to the harsher tasks of re-settling people, dealing with famines, and global climate change which may be very painfully bi-phasic: killer heat, followed by bitter cold.

--bkl