Global Warming

[Cinjin]

Milankovic climate oscillations help define climate sensitivity and assess potential human-made climate effects. We conclude that Earth in the warmest interglacial periods was less than 1°C warmer than in the Holocene and that goals of limiting human-made warming to 2°C and CO2 to 450 ppm are prescriptions for disaster. Polar warmth in prior interglacials and the Pliocene does not imply that a significant cushion remains between today's climate and dangerous warming, rather that Earth today is poised to experience strong amplifying polar feedbacks in response to moderate additional warming. Deglaciation, disintegration of ice sheets, is nonlinear, spurred by amplifying feedbacks. If warming reaches a level that forces deglaciation, the rate of sea level rise will depend on the doubling time for ice sheet mass loss. Gravity satellite data, although too brief to be conclusive, are consistent with a doubling time of 10 years or less, implying the possibility of multi-meter sea level rise this century.

The scary thing about Hansen’s work here is that it is the skeptics that have been wrong more times than he has. Their claims that Hansen was wrong or that the hockey stick is broken have proven to be false. If Hansen is right again this time things are going to be a lot worse than any of the IPCC’s predictions.

Rising sea levels is absolutely possible. No question about that for me. I'm well aware of our planet's precarious position regarding climate change. I posted an array of articles (only some of which) that implied that the scare tactics used by some are just that, and that the climate change may not carry all the impending doom that Al Gore would have 3rd graders believing. I'm not much of a band-wagon jumper when it comes to most things political and I thought it time for someone to throw in a perspective that didn't have us all dressed like Kevin Costner sailing around looking for dry land in Waterworld.

This planet will survive us. Will we survive ourselves?