If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Catastrophic sea level rise imminent ! (its too late now)
Earth 'is in imminent peril from sea level rise'
Last updated at 15:23pm on 19th June 2007 rising sea levels A mariner on Tepuka Islet on Funafuti Atoll protests about rising sea levels already inundating many of his country's low islands A group of US scientists may have given the clearest warning yet that global warming is presenting an imminent threat to civilisation. The six experts described the Earth as being in "imminent peril" and warned that a UN panel on climate change grossly underestimated the scale of sea-level increases this century. In an article published in the journal the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A.", the group led by James Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies wrote: "Recent greenhouse gas emissions place the Earth perilously close to dramatic climate change that could run out of control, with great dangers for humans and other creatures." The paper predicts that sea levels may rise by several metres by 2100, compared with a forecast from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published in February that predicts sea levels increasing between 18 and 59 centimetres. The group has called for extensive efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases to help keep the climate within the range of the past one million years. The scientists say there are 10 years to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures - if not, climate change will trigger rapid melting of polar ice sheets Dr Hansen estimates that we have 10 years to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures. Otherwise, climate change will trigger rapid meltingof polar ice sheets, worsened by the "albedo flip" when sunlight which is currently affected by the ice caps' white surface is absorbed by the darker surface of water. The study, which analysed more than 400,000 years of climate records through deep ice cores, found that although dramatic changes in the climate have occurred in the past, the mean temperature during the era of human civilisation had been stable. The scientists warn: "Civilisation developed and constructed extensive infrastructure during a period of unusual climate stability, the Holocene, now almost 12,000 years in duration. That period is about to end." The other scientists involved in the paper were Makiko Sato, Pushker Kharecha and Gary Russell, also of the Goddard Institute, David Lea of the University of California at Santa Barbara and Mark Siddall of Columbia University in New York. |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Is an attack on Venezueala Imminent? | destiny | Latin America | 10 | September 30th, 2005 04:58 PM |
WAS KATRINA A CATASTROPHIC EVENT? | Chrissy Cruiser | Caribbean | 0 | September 26th, 2005 07:48 PM |
WAS KATRINA A CATASTROPHIC EVENT? | Chrissy Cruiser | Cruises | 0 | September 26th, 2005 07:48 PM |
Hawaii deals anytime between late December and late January? | Sam | Travel - anything else not covered | 0 | November 17th, 2004 05:20 AM |
Is late October/early November too late for fall colors in Northerrn Maine? | jcoulter | USA & Canada | 12 | July 16th, 2004 08:21 PM |