Climate Forecasts Rapidly Getting Worse - Stuff NZ

[hatrack]

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So far, so manageable. New Zealand certainly isn't expected to suffer the spreading deserts problems facing Australia under the same IPCC forecasts. But where New Zealand scientists are watching the international debate closely is the risk of a more dangerous and rapid climate change. One of Australia's respected senior climate scientists, retired Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr Barrie Pittock, was worried scientists had not been frank enough about the fact the outlook on climate change now included the possibility of calamitous change.

"My concern is there's a range of uncertainty in most aspects of climate change. The sceptics tend to look at the low end of the range and say maybe nothing's going to happen, or only very little things. "But if you're taking a risk management approach then you've got to also look at the danger of something at the high end happening. "That's the basic problem, and the one most scientists have shied away from because they don't want to sound alarmist," said Pittock, author of Climate Change: Turning Up the Heat.

Stirring up that debate internationally is Nasa climate scientist James Hansen, who was famously gagged by the Bush administration over his views on climate change. Press staff at Nasa tried to prevent reporters speaking to Hansen after a December lecture in which he said time was running out to prevent runaway climate change. "I think sea-level rise is going to be the big issue soon, more even than warming itself," he said.

Hansen said the world was nearing a tipping point that would lead to sea level rises of 25m over coming centuries, the result of melting of most of the ice from Greenland and West Antarctica, as well as a portion of East Antarctica. Coastal dwellers would be continually rebuilding above a rising sea. Hansen called for urgent action to cut greenhouse gas emissions to avoid locking in climate change for good, a position that put him at odds with the American government.

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http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3585048a7693,00.html

[cliss]

1. Mr. Hansen will be proved

right. It's just too bad he gets to say, "I told you so".

There's some serious desertification going on right now, in southern Europe. Large parts of Portugal, Spain, even southern France and Italy are getting hit with desert-like heat.

Last year, there were several flash fires that burned for several days. Just imagine the money losses we're talking about.