Date published: 2006/03/24
The BBC says:
Earth could be headed for catastrophic sea level rise in the next few centuries if greenhouse gases continue to rise at present rates, experts say.
A study in the US journal Science suggests a threshold triggering a rise in sea level of several metres could be reached before the end of the century.
Scientists used an ancient period of warming to predict future changes.
Greenland could be as warm by 2100 as it was 130,000 years ago, when melting ice raised sea levels by 3-4m.
The implication is that Greenland would - eventually - melt by as much in response to present warming.
The findings come from two studies published in Science by Dr Jonathan Overpeck of the University of Arizona in Tucson and colleagues.
Their computer models show that, in addition to widespread melting of the Greenland ice sheet, this rate of warming could also lead to the collapse of about half the West Antarctic ice sheet in 500 years.
...
Geoscientist Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University, who is not an author on the new paper, told Science: "Palaeoclimate always has a large amount of uncertainty, [but] we should take this as a serious warning sign. You could lock in a dangerous warming during this century."
Another end-of-the-world report. Are these scientists so convinced by their findings that they are personally changing their lifestyle decisions (such as moving to higher ground, and not flying to scientific conferences at every opportunity)? When that starts happening, you can believe that disaster is indeed around the corner. Of course this is assuming "business as usual". But that is unlikely to be the case, not so much because anybody believes the doom scenarios enough to change their lifestyle, but because energy is going to get more expensive via the usual marketplace mechanism of supply and demand.
_________________________________________________________
All material not included from other sources is copyright cambridge2000.com.
For further information or questions email: info [at] cambridge2000 [dot] com
(replace "[at]" with "@" and "[dot]" with ".").