Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Global Warming Could Be Over By 3009!


If we get our act together - very soon - and slash carbon emissions - a lot - the effects of man-made global warming could pass within a mere thousand years.

The 22nd century is out, so is the 23rd, ditto for the 24th.

An international team of researchers led by some flaky outfit called the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory has released a report showing that the climate change effects we've already caused are slow to become apparent but infinitely slower to recede, a millenium worth of slow.

From CBC News:

In her paper, [the NOAA's Susan] Solomon, a leader of the International Panel on Climate Change and one of the world's best known researchers on the subject, noted that temperatures around the globe have risen and changes in rainfall patterns have been observed in areas around the Mediterranean, southern Africa and southwestern North America.
Warmer climate also is causing expansion of the ocean, and that is expected to increase with the melting of ice on Greenland and Antarctica, the researchers said.


"I don't think that the very long time scale of the persistence of these effects has been understood," Solomon said.

Global warming has been slowed by the ocean, Solomon said, because water absorbs a lot of energy to warm up. But that good effect will not only wane over time, the ocean will also help keep the planet warmer by giving off its accumulated heat to the air.

Climate change has been driven by gases in the atmosphere that trap heat from solar radiation and raise the planet's temperature — the "greenhouse effect." Carbon dioxide has been the most important of those gases because it remains in the air for hundreds of years. While other gases are responsible for nearly half of the warming, they degrade more rapidly, Solomon said.

Top climate scientists are becoming increasingly vocal in warning that the IPCC "consensus" reports, alarming as they may sound, tend to sugar coat the problem.

Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research added, "The temperature changes and the sea level changes are, if anything, underestimated and quite conservative, especially for sea level."

Psst - about your plans for that retirement condo in Arizona.

3 comments:

Reid said...

I guess by not linking to your sources it prevents your readers from finding out that Ms. Solomon thinks that carbon dioxide emissions have to be completely STOPPED, not just severly curtailed as you stated. So you'll be the first one to do your part and give up breathing right? Come-on... it's for the planet.

Reid said...

Oh... and by the way here's the link:

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090126_climate.html

The Mound of Sound said...

Okay Reid, you genius. Just how long do you think she would remain employed at NOAA if she became so delusional as to advocate the "only in Alberta" pap you assert? Go put your head back in the Tar Sands.