New Climate Change Warning

sebFlyte writes "A new grid computing climate research project, climateprediction.net, has come up with its first major results, and they're really not good news for the planet according to the BBC. The simulations suggest that over the next hundred years we could see average rises of average temperatures of up to 11K, more than twice what was previously thought."

Comments

It's because....

[gardyloo]

This thing was run on so many PCs. They obviously took the simulation itself into account -- good job!

Re:It's because....

[demachina]

Here is a good resource on global warming from EPA and National Science Foundation though there estimates are little lower, 6 celsius is there upper end over the next century. The most impressive thing about this web site is that its created by people in the U.S. government, the Bush White House hasn't shut it down and they haven't fired the people who created it, so shhhhh don't tell them about it because they must know its there because they really hate anyone who says stuff like this.

One of the more interesting sections. Those of you who've been through the big rains on the West Coast and the big snows on the East Coast should note that intense rainstorms and presumably snow storms are a potential indicator of global warming as the oceans evaporate off more water as they warm.

"Global mean surface temperatures have increased 0.5-1.0F since the late 19th century. The 20th century's 10 warmest years all occurred in the last 15 years of the century. Of these, 1998 was the warmest year on record. The snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere and floating ice in the Arctic Ocean have decreased. Globally, sea level has risen 4-8 inches over the past century. Worldwide precipitation over land has increased by about one percent. The frequency of extreme rainfall events has increased throughout much of the United States."

"Increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases are likely to accelerate the rate of climate change. Scientists expect that the average global surface temperature could rise 1-4.5F (0.6-2.5C) in the next fifty years, and 2.2-10F (1.4-5.8C) in the next century, with significant regional variation. Evaporation will increase as the climate warms, which will increase average global precipitation. Soil moisture is likely to decline in many regions, and intense rainstorms are likely to become more frequent. Sea level is likely to rise two feet along most of the U.S. coast."

Re:It's because....

[Acts of Attrition]

This is no laughing matter.
The avg temp is going to go up 11000 degrees!
We're doomed!

Re:It's because....

[calidoscope]

Global mean surface temperatures have increased 0.5-1.0F since the late 19th century.

A complicating factor is that 1850 marked the end of a several century global cooling event. The years 800 to 1200 AD were considerably warmer than from AD 1400 to 1800.

Re:It's because....

[ajs]

Nope, I recall measurements in Australia showing the same thing, and Antartica has been in a warming trend for the last 10,000 years (since the last ice age). You are correct, though that, as we understand it, the North Atlantic and Mediteranian suffered a far stronger period of warming 500-100 years ago (Egypt, as I recall, was significantly impacted).

The grand (or is that grand, grand) parent was concerned that the Bush administration didn't realize that the EPA was saying that the temperatures were rising AND were predicting further rises.

The problem here is a misunderstanding of what the point of disagreement is (and it's really not a right-left issue at all: I'm a liberal democrat myself, but agree with the White House on this). The difference is based, not on the question, "is it getting warmer?" That was a real and significant question in the 80s when there were doubts about the measurements being used. However, at this point we are fairly certain that temperatures have been rising for the last 100 years and have been rising more sharply for the last 50.

The question is: is this a natural warming trend, as observed 500-1000 years ago, is this human-induced or is it a combination of the two.

The most likely answer is that it's a combination, so the disagreement boils down to where you place the division of responsibility. If man is responsible for 0.00001% of the current warming trend then there's no point in worrying about it any more than we worry about tracking hurricanes. Do the math, warn the people, carry on.

If we're responsible for 50% of the current warming trend, then we should seriously re-think out interaction with the environment... and soon!

My personal belief is that, in the current climate of mud-slinging and political pressure, there is no reasonable way to determine the real answer, and so I am left with one overriding fact: for every form of influence man can exert on our world, nature routinely exerts far, far more influence. All of our factories, planes and cars pale in comparison to volcanoes, forest fires and various bilogical processes. The Sun's influence is still poorly understood. For example, what is the exact relationship between increases in solar output and evaporation? Since water vapor is the most potent greenhouse gas, knowing if evaporation is a linear, logarithmic or step function with respect to solar radiation is KEY to understanding global warming, and yet the process of evaporation is so complex that we have yet to understand it even enough to describe simple weather phenomenon, much less climactic change.

So, do we change the way we live? We should, but we didn't need a global warming debate to tell us that. We desperately need to police the most obviously damaging influences that man has on the environment. Chemical dumping kills millions every year, around the world. Why is that less of a problem than the THEORY that global warming might have a human influence?! We're over-fishing our oceans. Why is that less of a danger to human quality of life? We've been preventing forest fires the wrong way for 100 years, leading to fires that burn orders of magnitude hotter and more dangerously.

The problem I have with environmentalism is that it is mostly focused on a FEELING that humans are doing the wrong thing, and research is used as a sort of background music to the movement rather than the driving force. I want to be an environmentalist, but as long as environmentalism is defined by owl-squeezers and doom predictors I guess I'll have to just be a concerned inhabitant of planet Earth.

Someday...

[davew2040]

Someday people are going to feel awfully silly that they were worrying about terrorism instead of the warning signs of ecological degeneration.

...not good news for the planet...

[hwestiii]

I suspect that the planet will be fine in either case. Now perhaps not good news for it inhabitants...

Re:...not good news for the planet...

[savagedome]

Planet will be fine. This is just the planet's way to get rid of us. We were here to create plastic and that need is over.

In the words of George Carlin:

If plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, 'Why are we here?' Plastic...asshole.

HOWTO: give science a bad name.

[Space cowboy]

Disclaimer: I actually do think there's something in the global warming argument. I think putting loads more energy into a chaotic system gives that system the freedom to explore states in its phase space that could cause us some real grief. I actually don't care if "the planet will survive, it's seen worse". I'd prefer to survive personally, and I'd like to keep a few other humans around as well...

However I think the results are pretty conclusive in their own right and right-minded politicians ought to be doing something on that basis alone (they're finally beginning to, as well :-). I don't think that alarmist, over-the-top "reports" are doing any real good - in fact I think they harm the argument they try to represent.

So, by varying the parameters in a simulation, they've found a range of temperature increases which we should engender reactions from "concerned" (2 degrees) through "terrified" (11 degrees). Hey, I admitted my bias in the first paragraph! The press reports the "terrified" figure and it's big news. Until someone points out that it's a Normal distribution, and the massively-more-likely figure is in the "worried" temperature range of (guessing here) 5-6 degrees.

The problem is not that the scientists are lying (they're not), and not that the press are lying either (they're not). The problem is a lack of understanding of the end-result in announcing a catastrophe and then saying "No, we'll be ok". There's a fable about this, and it involves a boy crying "wolf" too many times...

I'm not sure who's to blame. Should the scientists state more forcefully what their expectation is rather than the extremes of their results? Would they ever get published in that case ? Should journalists be held accountable for doing the equivalent of shouting "Fire" in a theatre ? Well, a journalist's job is not to report the news, it's to sell papers, and catastrophes sell better. Perhaps there's a need for a neutral ground, some sort of arbiter that can interpret the results in a way the public can understand (since no-one seems to take science these days), but *that*'s open to *easy* abuse as well.

Perhaps science was better off in its ivory tower after all. That's a depressing thought. Perhaps the best solution would be to comprehensively educate people about science (better, about statistics) and beat the snake-oil salesmen at their own game.

Simon.

Re:HOWTO: give science a bad name.

[Vellmont]

The problem isn't that everyone is going to die, the problem is that an 11 degree temperature rise will cause massive disruption in society. If the global temperature rose 11 degrees (remember this is a global average over the whole year, not what you'll experience) that would melt much of the Antarctic glacier. Sea levels would rise substantially and coastal cities would be underwater. The climate would change dramatically and the key areas for food production would likely change. We'd probbably get more frequent and powerfull Hurricanes and tornados.

The point is that we humans have a lot invested in how the climate is right now. A drastic change of 11 degrees over a relatively short period of time would be a global catastrophe that could cause an economic depression that's make the great depression look like an "economic downturn".

Re:HOWTO: give science a bad name.

[thogard]

Its not the humans getting too hot thats going to be the problem.

Many fish in the Pacific ocean hatch out of eggs on the great barrier reef. That reef's eco system is tired into specific temperature bands and certain fish breed in specific parts of it. There is a very delicate balance in the food chain that does go away with slight changes. The last 10 years has seen a major drop in the number of young fish that hatch and that means there are fewer fish in the ocean to feed humans.

Also don't forget water. If you increase a forest's temperature by about 5 degrees, you double its risk of forest fire. If the risk is high enough you end up with a former forest that can't recover after fires. Forest hold a massive amount of water and are a major part of the local water cycle.

The areas you mentioned can only support that many people because of good transportation and the fact there is a huge river to pump water from. The great salt lake is getting much smaller very quickly and its local evaporation and local rain is a source of a great deal of the ground water. That local water cycle provides a buffer that helps keep the climate bearable.

The cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a graphic that shows the cause of all this, in a particularly vivid way.
Almost fell off my chair when I first saw this info...

Lalalalalala I can't hear you lalalalalala

[revscat]

Let's get this over with:

1. It's all a liberal apocalyptic myth
2. The planet will be fine. It's been here for billions of years.
3. It's part of a natural change
4. Rush Limbaugh/Sean Hannity/Fox News told me different, and they're experts on the climate whose opinion I have every reason to trust.
5. I think it's funny when liberals scream about the environment.

Do conservatives just not think there are consequences, or does it just appear that way? "Pollute the environment? Don't worry about it. Dump motor oil on your lawn, screw it. Make a liberal cry. Hahaha. Torture innocents? Eh. Has to be done. Drive up the national debt? C'est l'vie. Declare war for no good reason? They love us for it, the liberal media lies if they say any different."

I thought America was founded by *scientists*, non? The prevailing scientific opinion is that global warming is real and dangerous. Where'd these religious zealots come from, and when do we start shooting?

Re:You have to prioritize

[Anonymous Coward]

You also have to prioritise based upon possible casualties and cost of the threat.

Terrorism in the USA: A few billion dollars, a few thousand lives, maybe once every 10 years.

Warming: Sea defences, mass migration from low-land, and everything else: Hundreds of billions of dollars, millions? of lives, over the next 100 years.

Re:Crichton novel- State of Fear

[IvyMike]

Anyone else read Michael Crichton's latest novel State of Fear? The scientists at RealClimate read it; they're not impressed. For the lazy, here's the conclusion:

In summary, I am a little disappointed, not least because while researching this book, Crichton actually visited our lab and discussed some of these issues with me and a few of my colleagues. I guess we didn't do a very good job. Judging from his reading list, the rather dry prose of the IPCC reports did not match up to the some of the racier contrarian texts. Had RealClimate been up and running a few years back, maybe it would've all worked out differently...

We don't know so, everyone stop doing anything!

[pavera]

"Stephen Byers claims to know that 400 ppm is the maximum 'safe' level; what we show is that it may be impossible to pin down a safe level, and therefore we should not focus exclusively on stabilisation."

Ok, so its impossible to pin down a "safe level" of greenhouse gas, so we already might be over the "safe level" or it might not be "safe" if there are only 200ppm, so what we need to do is build this huge CO2 sink that will draw down CO2 to nearly 0ppm, that will be safe right? It has to be!

This is the same logic that causes Superfund in the US to clean up toxins to lower than naturally occuring levels wasting billions of dollars digging tons of dirt and replacing it with new dirt just because arsenic is found in higher than 3ppb naturally in some area.

We don't know what's safe, but we know that at some level it becomes bad, so that means at any level it's bad right?

Help climateprediction.net!

[miope]

The climates models are computed using the BOINC platform (distributed computing in your PC, similar to SETI, etc.).

Please, help the project donating your idle CPU cycles, go to: the homesite of the project and download the client.

The client (BOINC) supports Linux, Windows, MAC OS, etc.

Absolutely not. Key word "over". Stil important

[Nomihn0]

if there is more than one average rise in temperature from the globe, it denotes a change of temperature in a single location (i.e. from a single sensing station).

Had the article said "for the next hundred years", I'd have questioned its science rather than its grammar. Yes, it is confusing, but 11 Degress Celsius (as it is properly referred to) is still an outrageous increase, especially taking into account the fact that it is an average temperature. This means that the both the mean and extremes increase. Expect some very cold weather in parts due to "global warming". Also, expect scorchers. Of course, the significance is not so much the extremes as it is this mean temperature. Bird migration and plant budding schedules are already off-kilter. This isn't only an inconvenience for Dodo birds, its a serious hazard to the Earth's convenient biological balance. Watch for increased pollution in cities, species die-offs, catastrophic farming years, fisheries collapse, and increased natural disasters. It's in front of us right now. Those places least harmed by the full force of the tsunami had wave-breaking coral reefs and mangrove swamps in front of them. Without these, and many more, of nature's natural defenses, we're in major trouble.

It's not just "The Day After Tomorrow", people.

Re:You have to prioritize

[Wyatt Earp]

"Keep your military in your own damn country; no-one likes a nosy neighbour."

OK. So when the EU can take care of, say, problems a days drive from Berlin, like Kosovo or Bosnia, the United States should leave Europe, of course when the entire Red Army and Warsaw Pact was sitting on the other side of the Fulda Gap, it was alright to be nosy.

What about Korea? Ready for the DPRK to burn Seoul? Or Japan? Ready for the PRC to get back at Japan for WW2? Or Taiwan? Ready for the PRC to get back at them for having the gaul to resist the PRC?

Or how about things no one hears about, like the Green Berets demining all over the world? Or American SAR saving lives in the deep ocean? Or how about the 82nd Airborne keeping the DMZ in the Sinai since 1977?

Or what about the US military being there to assist in the Indian Ocean after the Tsuamni? Australia is the only other one in the region with any sealift or airlift and it's a fraction of what the US has.

As soon as the rest of the World shows the slightest ability to not burn itself down the moment we pull back to the US, we'll be happy to, until you all man up, you are stuck with us.

Re:You have to prioritize

[Darken_Everseek]

I apologise, my intentions were mistaken here. I'm all for peacekeeping and humanitarian operations. Aiding after the Tsunami is a good thing, as is helping to enforce the DMZ. Iraq isn't. Afghanistan wasn't.

Your de-mining bit though; rather ironic considering that when last I heard, the U.S. still hadn't signed the international treaty banning anti-personnel mines.

Re:You have to prioritize

[That's Unpossible!]

And what threat did Iraq pose?? No WMD.

Actually, they did have WMD. Sarin gas for starters. What else went over the border to Syria and Iran, we'll probably never know. Absence of proof is not proof of absence. Even the report that the media trotted out a few months ago highlighting the "NO WMDs" claim made it very clear that Saddam was going to keep his eyes on the WMD prize.

And this is completely setting aside the question of the oppression of Iraqis.

Let's face it. This was a blood for votes war started by Bush.

Wait, first it was a blood for oil war. But then everyone pointed out we weren't making out on Iraqi oil. (Just the UN made out on that, right?)

Now it's a ... blood for votes war? The war divided the fucking USA. How exactly did that win him votes? He won by a larger majority than 2000, but you act as if the war sealed the deal. I mean, the war was the single most hated thing about Bush by the left.

It's costing us billions of dollars and over 1000 American lives. And I don't give a shit if we did capture Saddam. His capture wasn't worth a single American life!

Is he worth hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives? Because that's how many his men have killed since he was in power. And they didn't just die from bombings, we're talking rape and torture. And no, not the kind of torture where people have sex in front of you and make you undress, but the kind where things are shoved up your ass that don't belong in your ass, where you are slowly killed, you know, real torture.

And that's not even counting the Iraqis that were just made to suffer under his rule.

I only hope that history will paint Bush as the evil little mental midget that he really is.

Sad to tell you this, but if Iraq gets a taste of democracy and it catches on in the middle east, Bush is going to be the Reagan of the 21st century.

Re:First test of this distributed model

[chickanmonkey]

From climateprediction.net Introduction to climate modelling

The equations are tweaked, within reasonable boundaries, so that the model does as well as possible at producing past and current climates (compared to archived observations).

I really can't beleave you give them so little credit as to think they would overlook something so bleading obvious as to test the model before using it. Do you discount everyone you disagree with this easily.

Re:You have to prioritize

[Coryoth]

Sad to tell you this, but if Iraq gets a taste of democracy and it catches on in the middle east

Yes, that's one possible outcome for Iraq. Another possible outcome is that out of all the chaos Iraq manages to form itself into an Islamic state - what Zawahiri and bin Laden have been trying (and repeatedly failing) to do for the last 15 years or so. Who knows, Zawahiri and bin Laden believe that, sould that actually happen it will cause the muslim masses to rise up, overthrow their leaders and create a slew of Islamic states throughout the middle east. That was, is, and will be their goal. For the most part the state "jihad against America" is a way to try and rally support - a lesson they learned when their attempted efforts in, for instance, Algeria failed to attract the support of the masses (oddly the general population was rather repelled, rather than attracted by, their violence).

So, we have 2 competing theories:

(1) Install a democracy in the Iraq and watch democracy then sweep the middle east.

(2) Rally support by encouraging people to rise up against the Americans that interfere in middle east politics and institute an Islamic state in Iraq. The Islamic Jihad movement can then sweep the middle east.

To be honest, no matter what happens in Iraq, I don't really expect anything to "sweep the middle east". In the meantime though the two theories seem to be fairly well in balance. Iraq is in chaos, there's ill will by the common people toward the US, and Islamic clerics (like al Sadr) are polling very well leading up the elections. In the meantime Iraq is actually having free and open elections so democracy will arrive. It looks to me if things could go either way - which means I'm not so sure this whole "introduce democracy and watch it spread through the middle east" idea was quite all it was cracked up to be.

Jedidiah.

Re:You have to prioritize

[thej1nx]

You don't really get it do you ?

Afghanistan was fine. Noticed how the world was with you and cheering you on when you went there ? But let us cut the crap. You didn't really go there to "extend freedom and democrocy". You went there to catch terrorists who had attacked you and to topple a regime which harboured these terrorists, and world agreed that you had the right. Freedom and democracy ? Well that was incidental. You *are* supposed to clean up after the mess you cause. If you create a power vaccum you would definitely be expected to protect the innocent civilians there from anarchial looting and rioting, by helping set up a democratic government.

As for Iraq ... for the umpteenth time, how was it a problem for you ? There are hundreds of tyrannical regime. Last I checked one of them actually became an ally despite having WMDs and caught profilerating the nuke technology *and* being a dictatorial regime, which had actually toppled the previous democratic government via a military coup.

You seem to be the only one buying into your fairytales about "extending freedom and democracy", when in reality you just support dictators usually.

Peak Oil vs Global Warmining

[TheNarrator]

I am far more convinced that Peak Oil is going to be the next big catastrophe to hit humanity. Peak oil has far more evidence going for it in that oil supply's have followed the Hubbert's peak model in many different areas where oil has been discovered. Of course if world oil consumption falls this means that Global Warming is going to be a non-issue 100 years from now and we are either going to be somewhere in between the scenarios where we'll all be living in a nuclear powered hydrogen economy utopia where fossil fueled powered engines are as common as horse and buggy or living in poverty with 1/5 or less of the world's population due to mass starvation.

Re:You have to prioritize

[RichardX]

Afghanistan was a total sucess.
I have to agree with you there - it was pretty impressive how Bin Laden was captured so quickly. Uh.. oh.. wait...

Re:You have to prioritize

[metamatic]

Is he worth hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives? Because that's how many his men have killed since he was in power.

And guess what? We killed ten of thousands ourselves "liberating" them, and now the civilian death rate is worse than it was under Saddam.

And they didn't just die from bombings, we're talking rape and torture. And no, not the kind of torture where people have sex in front of you and make you undress, but the kind where things are shoved up your ass that don't belong in your ass, where you are slowly killed, you know, real torture.

You mean like the Iraqi teenager who was seen in Abu Ghraib, lying on the floor with his anus bleeding while US troops discussed sodomizing him with metal objects? I guess that story didn't get reported on FOX News, huh?

Re:First test of this distributed model

[Jim Logajan]

It seems neither you nor the person(s) who modded you up didn't know that the researchers actually used the method you proposed to select the best models. The AFP story on Yahoo, http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=15 12&e=6&u=/afp/scienceenvironment/, states that "Once the first batch of results was obtained, the researchers selected those models that had simulated the past climate accurately. These best-performing models were then asked to predict how much the Earth would warm after CO2 concentrations had doubled from the pre-industrial level of 280 parts per million (ppm)."