Originally Posted by
Ziggurat 
Uh, no. It's the most optimistic outcome of a number of
models of anthropogenic global warming. Not the same thing at all.
Science is done with models. Live with it or go join the Amish.
Getting a little terse there Ben
Models and observations feedback to each other....models however plus paleo observations for reference value on timing of change provide forward scenarios with certain percentage of confidence.
The mechanism is well understood and the radiative imbalance will continue for the next 50 years even if we stop cold turkey now.....there is still another .6 C rise in store.
There is no way we are going cold turkey - BAU leaves us +4 just after mid century.....
The Copenhagen Diagnosis gives +7 c as a BAU outcome for 2100
http://www.countercurrents.org/cd251109.htm
and MIT give a 10% risk of 7 degrees.
These are unimaginable changes far outside of anything in the Holocene where human civilization grew and prospered....both perhaps too effectively.
Global warming: Earth's temperature near highest level in a million yearsmongabay.com
September 25, 2006
Earth may nearing its warmest level in the last million years according to a paper published by NASA scientists in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0925-nasa.html
A study that appeared in Nature Magazine in 2003 found that 1700 plant, animal and insect species moved poleward at an average rate of 6 kilometers (about 4 miles) per decade in the last half of the 20th century.
That migration rate is not fast enough to keep up with the current rate of movement of a given temperature zone, which has reached about 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) per decade in the period 1975 to 2005.
This is not far future stuff.....when I started following it 30 years ago I though - meh....something far off.
Then 10 years ago it was - hhmmmm interesting times for my kid.....
3 years ago.....**** it's NOW.!
as commercial shipping starts across the Arctic this year and nations fight for Arctic resources.
It's not all in the temperature record..that's transient.....changes in ocean heat and cryosphere have enormous hysteresis ...we CAN slow this train but there is no stopping it in any short period and forget about reversing it.
At some point we need off fossil fuel dependence.....the sooner the better ...big time
and there is much money to be made in that transition as Stern noted, China and Denmark know and Doerr puts his money where his mouth is.
