Al Gore Needs to Re-Edit 'An Inconventient Truth'. We Have 10 Yrs Left!

At the most! Okay! I am totally freaked out now. :scared:

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The melting of the sea ice in the Arctic, the clearest sign so far of global warming, has taken a sudden and enormous leap forward, in one of the most ominous developments yet in the onset of climate change.

Two separate studies by Nasa, using different satellite monitoring technologies, both show a great surge in the disappearance of Arctic ice cover in the last two years.

One, from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, shows that Arctic perennial sea ice, which normally survives the summer melt season and remains year-round, shrank by 14 per cent in just 12 months between 2004 and 2005.

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Yesterday, Jim Hansen, the leading climatologist and director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in New York, issued a now-or-never warning to governments around the world, including his own, telling them they must take radical action to avert a planetary environmental catastrophe. He said it was no longer viable for nations to adopt a "business as usual" stance on fossil-fuel consumption.

"I think we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change ... no longer than a decade, at the most," he said.

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1603667.ece

Edit to add the WaPo photo from yesterday....



This image provided by NASA Wednesday Sept. 13, 2006 shows QuikScat interannual observations of sea ice over the Arctic enabling the detection of recent drastic reductions in the extent of perennial ice and its depletion from the eastern Arctic Ocean between 2004, left and 2005. Arctic sea ice in winter is melting far faster than before, two new NASA studies reported Wednesday, a new and alarming trend that researchers say threatens the ocean's delicate ecosystem. For more than 25 years Arctic sea ice has slowly diminished in winter by about 1.5 percent per decade. But in the past two years the melting has occurred at rates 10 to 15 times faster. (AP Photo/NASA)

Photo Credit: AP Photo

Yesterday, Jim Hansen, the leading climatologist and director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in New York, issued a now-or-never warning to governments around the world, including his own, telling them they must take radical action to avert a planetary environmental catastrophe. He said it was no longer viable for nations to adopt a "business as usual" stance on fossil-fuel consumption.


This is an amazing quote, particularly given the context and the attribution to Hansen. He's been touting for several years that the impact of human activities of climate will not be felt for roughly 20 years from now. I certainly agree with his challenge to governments around the world to take quick action, but the implication that any impacts on climate today are due to human causes is pure ca-ca. Hansen knows this, but the time is ripe to use the alarm raised by new studies to attribute these observations to anthropogenic activities.

That climatologists around the Globe are freaking out right about now. The time is ripe for extreme measures.

We can diminish the additional impacts in the coming decades, but the current observations are probably of natural origin.

nt.

nt

nt.

Every study (including one just reported recently) is reporting that the recent climate changes are due
to mankind's' activity. The favorite "alternative" theory of solar output was just debunked by a study
published this week, I believe.

So, pray tell, what is your theory on climate change? Since the theory that it's human caused is pure
ca-ca.

It simply amazes me that anyone can still think that they can shovel shit from the outhouse into the garden
indefinitely, no matter many people use the outhouse or how much they shit. And if the garden dies then they
blame the gods or their neighbors or the local volcano or something else... never themselves.

The change in temperature due to human activities to date is less than one degree. It will still be less than one degree ten years from now. Yet, temperatures are cycling up. Why is that? Are Hansen's models that wrong? No. He has repeatedly demonstrated excellent agreement between his model and actual temps. The ONLY remaining explanation is that we're in the middle -- or the beginnning -- of a significant, natural warming trend.

By all means, let's not make it worse, but let's be realistic about the causes.

I've been working with climate researchers for many many years. Most of the MODIS datasets captured are done
so with systems I designed while I was at NASA.

The computer models (all of them) are merely software that reflect the current thinking of the author at
the time. That they agree with historical datasets is very nice, but not very meaningful.

for example...

let me give you a set of numbers like so: -100, 100, -10, 10, -100, 100 and so on. how many different solutions
can one come up with that will generate that exact sequence... one? two? hundreds? thousands? infinite?

There is simply no way, without dozens of data sequences that we can relate to specific climates, that we
can accurately predict the next climate with the current data points. In other words, yeah, the models can
be radically wrong... However, they don't even have to be wrong to support the assertion that it's human
activity this time.

Holy crapoli! I never thought I'd see that at the DU. God knows that the models are filled with uncertainty, but even most skeptics aren't willing to simply shrug them off.

So what's the alternative? How else could you possibly attribute very the slight changes in climate observed at this time to natural or human causes without the aid of these models?

Maybe if you did a some reading or research you would find that there is " scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations" .

IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" . The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" .

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

The IPCC said the climate is "being affected" but made no claims just what those impacts are.

Have you read the report? I have. I challenge you to find a place in that report that would unflinchingly attribute the melting of ice caps or the melting of ice sheets in Greenland to human activities.

I am well versed on this subject, and I argue constantly against rightwing knuckledraggers who don't believe in global warming. Yes, global warming WILL happen some day in the not-too-distant future. But not today.

I'd love to buy into your scenario, but it's simply wrong and unsupportable.

I am done with you.

"There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities."

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/007.htm

Are you interpreting that comment to mean that every spike in temperature throughout the globe for the past 50 years is due exclusively -- or even in part -- to human activities?

Not a chance.

You previously claimed that the IPCC didn't make any claims attributing climate change to humans. They do, emphatically. Now you're moving the goalposts to where the science has to explain every spike in temperature (of course, you don't bother to define that precise techincal term "spike"). I've been through this with you before, you're intellectually dishonest and others on this thread recognize that as well.

where he talks about the observed "swiss cheese" look to major portions of the ice cap on greenland, and
relates it to a similar ice sheet in the Antarctic that simply dissolved in the space of a couple of years.
The Antarctic sheet that had this "Swiss cheese" look was relatively small... and since it was already
floating on the water, the melting would not increase sea levels... however, the same cannot be said of the
greenland ice cap, since it is entirely land based.

And yeah, we probably don't even have 10 years...

The earth has reached a tipping point. And we are too late to stop it (IMHO). Even if we all simply quit
driving tomorrow and quit burning things to heat our homes... which we won't... it is likely too late to
avoid some of the bad consequences of global warming.

So we are going to have to learn to live with some (we already are)... and try to reverse trends ASAP to
avoid the very very worst. Before there is widespread starvation.

For one, I'd give up on building in a lot of the gulf coast and eastern coast of Florida. And a lot of islands
are going to get smaller RSN.

was closer to fifty years. Perhaps my mind was playing tricks on me because I have two children.

:(

Did you see the graphs at the end.. where he was correlating temp with CO2 concentrations as collected by
ice cores (an ironic situation, that). And he showed the current and projected CO2 concentration and related
it to past "norms"... we are literally in uncharted territory. (this is where he was using the cherry
picker to point to the top of the graph). And that makes it hard to figure out how long we "have".
In many ways, we don't have any time at all (if you want to avoid all effects of global warming). There
are many people now (mostly in the Arctic regions and in pacific atolls) where climate change is already
creating refugees and major changes. But if the land based ice sheets melt, well that could really impact
the world... possibly plunging Europe into a mini Ice Age if the Gulf Stream current fails.

Could be 50 years... could be 10. Could be less. Could be 100. We simply don't know.

If I were to bet, I'd place a bet on less than 10 years. But then, I'm a pessimist.

I remember and yes, I am a pessimist too. :(

It is highly unlikely that the changes we are seeing today are the results of human activities. The most credible research, including that led by Hansen, states clearly that humans have had little impact on average temperatures so far, and that impact is unlikely to be seen for a couple of decades.

Let's not add to the problem by spewing excessive quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere, but let's also recognize that nature is having her way with us. As you suggest -- we'd better adapt.

burning fossil fuels. The methane, carbon monoxide and dioxide in the atmosphere is acting like a blanket traping the heat in the atmosphere.

It only takes a few degrees of ocean temperature to melt the polar ice caps.

But, the current changes are not due to human activities.

Do a Google on Hansen and read his NASA reports. He is very emphatic about this.

And igonre the Scientific Consensus that is as I have stated in post 17.

His study epitomizes research done world wide.

Your reaction is so typical -- I disagree with your extreme reaction, and suddenly you classify me as an ignorant jackass who is here from the Free Republic to represent the coal industry. Have considered reading this thread?

the current climate changes are NOT human caused.

And what is your favorite theory as to what is causing the current climate change?

Simply because mans major effects only started within the last 100 years, and really only got going in the last
50? Suppose the climate changes more rapidly than what we figured 30 years ago, suppose it changes
gradually to a point (with built in chaotic modifiers)... until it reaches a point where it "flips" and
we enter (very rapidly) a new steady state of climate.

The population of man has increased exponentially throughout the last few centuries... and only recently have
we hit the "knee in the curve" where things really take off (100's millions to 10's billions in a few decades).
And everyone wants to burn something to cook and keep warm.. and lots want to burn a lot more to travel and
trade and make things.

You know, the last time we had a worldwide rapid climate change was the "year without summer" when a volcano
spewed tons and tons of ash into the atmosphere.. and the entire globe cooled.... rapidly. Like within a year.
So why can't the last few decades worth of CO2 cause global warming in a longer time period?

Okay? CO2 concentrations will have to nearly double to get the kind of changes necessary to make a big -- or even measurable -- impact. This has been shown time and time again by researchers across the globe.

it is not a consensus of the scientific community over years of research and peer reveiws.

you do not seem to understand that one report by one guy is just his observations in his veiews, not a collective of scientists around the world.

That report and Hansen's others dating back more than 20 years are completely consistent with the Times article you link.

I thought you were going to ignore me? You should -- this is my last response to you.

Hansen is capitalizing on the current warming trends and the subsequent changes to support his point: we need to change NOW because in 20 years when the human impacts will be felt, it will be too late.

Talk to me in five years or so when we've emerged from this natural warming trend and are into a natural cooling trend. Will you be siding with the coal companies?

This is NOT an easily digestible topic. Not every melting piece of ice is due to global warming (human induced).

Here's a nice article by Hansen that is less technical but encompasses the full range of his research.

http://naturalscience.com/ns/articles/01-16/ns_jeh3.html

Come on, use some common sense!!!

You burn shit and things happen to the environment.

I dont need to be a scientist to know the OBVIOIUS.

the situation with coal is outrageous as well. :(

are rediculous. I am hoping for some increase in available shoreline closer to home anyway.

"An Inconvenient Truth". I found the article very informative...thank you for giving us the link!

BTW:K&R

I intend to buy it -- I recommend it to everyone.

...instead of evil!

Chimpolini has it half right- civilization is at stake in the 21st Century.