Why Global Warming Will Be Far Worse, Far Sooner, Than Forecasts Predict

[marmar]

Published on Tuesday, September 3, 2013 by Common Dreams
Why Global Warming Will Be Far Worse, Far Sooner, Than Forecasts Predict

by John Atcheson


The International Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report on global warming – dubbed AR5 – is due out in 2014, but information is leaking out already, and once again, it is likely to be outdated on the day it’s released.

Worse, it will substantially understate both the rate and pace of warming, and it’s consequences. Here’s why.

Outdated on day of release: The IPCC process virtually assures that all the research used in the report will be several years old. Since it only uses peer reviewed work and a consensus process, it has a long lead-time and a least common denominator data set. The latest research and any research that challenges established theory is left on the cutting room floor.

For example, in the AR 4 – released in 2007 -- the IPCC forecast sea level rise to be, at most, 59 centimeters. Conventional wisdom up to that time suggested that continental ice sheets took thousands of years to melt. But well before that report was issued, research had revealed that dynamic forces were causing these ice sheets to melt much faster. As a result, even as the AR4 was being released, some researchers were forecasting sea level increases of as much as 3 meters – nearly 5 times the worst-case AR4 estimate. ......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/03-0

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1. ...

[dipsydoodle]

2. Might become a matter of what comes first.

The recent polar change in the sun could possibly lead to a mini ice age.

Random link to subject :

Sun's Magnetic Field to Reverse: Historically Low Activity.

Dr Matthew Penn from the national solar observatory says the sunspot cycle may disappear altogether in the next 10 years.

“If this trend continues, there will be almost no spots in Cycle 25, and we might be going into another Maunder Minimum,” he said.

If this were the case little solar activity would occur at all. The maunder minimum occurred during the same time period when sunspots became extremely rare. This forced a mini ice age over Europe, Russia, and North America causing the Thames river in London to freeze over.

Dr Penn says there is some research tying lack of sunspots to local weather events. However, there is not a definite tie between a "mini ice age" and lack of solar activity.

Read more: http://www.abc2news.com/dpp/weather/weather_blogs/suns-magnetic-field-to-reverse-historically-low-sunspots#ixzz2dqGU3o9G

Period referred to was 17th century.

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3. Science is very conservative about these things.

That's good actually. It takes more than a single finding to establish new science.

But when the extant science is lagging behind on all the new stuff, sometimes it needs to play catch up. Still, there are some scientists who are saying the right things in spite of it.