New Research

[knocker]

Localized subduction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the Southern Hemisphere oceans

This paper greatly advances our understanding of how carbon emissions are drawn deep into the Southern Ocean, slowing the rate of global climate change. A few regions around the world are key in overturning deep and shallow layers of the ocean, and allow carbon to be locked away from the atmosphere for centuries. The Southern Ocean in particular is known to be a significant oceanic carbon sink, and accounts for 40% of all carbon entering the deep oceans. And yet, until now, no-one could quite work out how the carbon gets there from the surface waters. This paper resolves this, and shows the importance of 1000km-wide plunging “funnelsâ€.

The analysis is based around a decade’s worth of data from thousands of robotic floats, and hundreds of ships spread across the southern hemisphere oceans. It has shown that carbon capture process occur in well-defined regions of the Southern Ocean, which Sallee et al. mapped. They pinpointed five such zones in the Southern Ocean, including one off the southern tip of Chile and another to the south-west of New Zealand. They found that certain combinations of winds and currents are required to pump carbon dioxide into the deep ocean, where much of it stays locked away for thousands of years. Mesoscale ocean eddies have a primary role in this process.

The importance of ocean eddy processes in the global carbon cycle, demonstrated by these new results, raises the question of how well coarse resolution climate models represent the relatively fine-scale eddy processes. This work lays down some very significant challenges to the developers of climate and Earth System models, but also shows the way forward in evaluating and improving model performance.

Link to the full paper in the NERC Open Research Archive

http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/about_bas/publications/month/paper.php?id=1941

[knocker]

Overturning decades of conventional wisdom, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have found that moderately high indoor concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO₂) can significantly impair people’s decision-making performance. The results were unexpected and may have particular implications for schools and other spaces with high occupant density.

“In our field we have always had a dogma that CO₂ itself, at the levels we find in buildings, is just not important and doesn’t have any direct impacts on people,†said Berkeley Lab scientist William Fisk, a co-author of the study, which was published in Environmental Health Perspectives online last month. “So these results, which were quite unambiguous, were surprising.†The study was conducted with researchers from State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical University.

On nine scales of decision-making performance, test subjects showed significant reductions on six of the scales at CO₂ levels of 1,000 parts per million (ppm) and large reductions on seven of the scales at 2,500 ppm. The most dramatic declines in performance, in which subjects were rated as “dysfunctional,†were for taking initiative and thinking strategically. “Previous studies have looked at 10,000 ppm, 20,000 ppm; that’s the level at which scientists thought effects started,†said Berkeley Lab scientist Mark Mendell, also a co-author of the study. “That’s why these findings are so startling.â€

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2012/10/17/elevated-indoor-carbon-dioxide-impairs-decision-making-performance/

[knocker]

The steady and dramatic decline in the sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean over the last three decades has become a focus of media and public attention. At the opposite end of the Earth, however, something more complex is happening.

A new NASA study shows that from 1978 to 2010 the total extent of sea ice surrounding Antarctica in the Southern Ocean grew by roughly 6,600 square miles every year, an area larger than the state of Connecticut. And previous research by the same authors indicates that this rate of increase has recently accelerated, up from an average rate of almost 4,300 square miles per year from 1978 to 2006.

"There's been an overall increase in the sea ice cover in the Antarctic, which is the opposite of what is happening in the Arctic,†said lead author Claire Parkinson, a climate scientist with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "However, this growth rate is not nearly as large as the decrease in the Arctic.â€

The Earth’s poles have very different geographies. The Arctic Ocean is surrounded by North America, Greenland and Eurasia. These large landmasses trap most of the sea ice, which builds up and retreats with each yearly freeze-and-melt cycle. But a large fraction of the older, thicker Arctic sea ice has disappeared over the last three decades. The shrinking summer ice cover has exposed dark ocean water that absorbs sunlight and warms up, leading to more ice loss.

On the opposite side of the planet, Antarctica is a continent circled by open waters that let sea ice expand during the winter but also offer less shelter during the melt season. Most of the Southern Ocean’s frozen cover grows and retreats every year, leading to little perennial sea ice in Antarctica.

Using passive-microwave data from NASA's Nimbus 7 satellite and several Department of Defense meteorological satellites, Parkinson and colleague Don Cavalieri showed that sea ice changes were not uniform around Antarctica. Most of the growth from 1978 to 2010 occurred in the Ross Sea, which gained a little under 5,300 square miles of sea ice per year, with more modest increases in the Weddell Sea and Indian Ocean. At the same time, the region of the Bellingshausen and Amundsen Seas lost an average of about 3,200 square miles of ice every year.

September 2012 witnessed two opposite records concerning sea ice. Two weeks after the Arctic Ocean's ice cap experienced an all-time summertime low for the satellite era (left), Antarctic sea ice reached a record winter maximum extent (right). But sea ice in the Arctic has melted at a much faster rate than it has expanded in the Southern Ocean, as can be seen in this image by comparing the 2012 sea ice levels with the yellow outline, which in the Arctic image represents average sea ice minimum extent from 1979 through 2010 and in the Antarctic image shows the median sea ice extent in September from 1979 to 2000. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio and NASA Earth Observatory/ Jesse Allen

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/arctic-antarctic-ice.html

[knocker]

Dust's Warming Counters Half of its Cooling Effect

Dust that routinely rises above the world’s deserts causes a more significant localized warming effect than previously thought, a new study based on NASA field research shows.

In April 2008, atmospheric scientists set up camp in Zhangye, a semi-arid region between China's Taklimakan and Gobi deserts. They sorted and prepared cargo that included two mobile laboratories housed in trailers, and an array of upward-looking instruments for measuring airborne dust particles. Then, the team waited for favorable conditions – for either of the two neighboring deserts to send clouds of dust blowing over camp before fieldwork wrapped up a few months later in June.

The wait paid off. By early May, a heavy dust episode darkened the skies over camp as scientists and instruments looked on.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/dust-warming.html

[knocker]

Carbon dioxide – our salvation from a future ice age?

Mankind's emissions of fossil carbon and the resulting increase in temperature could prove to be our salvation from the next ice age. According to new research from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, the current increase in the extent of peatland is having the opposite effect.

"We are probably entering a new ice age right now. However, we're not noticing it due to the effects of carbon dioxide", says researcher Professor Lars Franzén.

Looking back over the past three million years, the earth has experienced at least 30 periods of ice age, known as ice age pulses. The periods in between are called interglacials. The researchers believe that the Little Ice Age of the 16th to 18th centuries may have been halted as a result of human activity. Increased felling of woodlands and growing areas of agricultural land, combined with the early stages of industrialisation, resulted in increased emissions of carbon dioxide which probably slowed down, or even reversed, the cooling trend.

"It is certainly possible that mankind's various activities contributed towards extending our ice age interval by keeping carbon dioxide levels high enough," explains Lars Franzén, Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Gothenburg.

"Without the human impact, the inevitable progression towards an ice age would have continued. The spread of peatlands is an important factor."

http://www.mires-and-peat.net/map10/map_10_08.pdf

[knocker]

Future warming likely to be on high side of climate projections, analysis finds

BOULDER—Climate model projections showing a greater rise in global temperature are likely to prove more accurate than those showing a lesser rise, according to a new analysis by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The findings, published in this week's issue of Science, could provide a breakthrough in the longstanding quest to narrow the range of global warming expected in coming decades and beyond.

NCAR scientists John Fasullo and Kevin Trenberth, who co-authored the study, reached their conclusions by analyzing how well sophisticated climate models reproduce observed relative humidity in the tropics and subtropics.

The climate models that most accurately captured these complex moisture processes and associated clouds, which have a major influence on global climate, were also the ones that showed the greatest amounts of warming as society emits more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.

"There is a striking relationship between how well climate models simulate relative humidity in key areas and how much warming they show in response to increasing carbon dioxide," Fasullo says. "Given how fundamental these processes are to clouds and the overall global climate, our findings indicate that warming is likely to be on the high side of current projections."

The research was funded by NASA

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-11/ncfa-fwl110512.php

[BornFromTheVoid]

Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama?

Over the past two decades, skeptics of the reality and significance of anthropogenic climate change have frequently accused climate scientists of “alarmismâ€: of over-interpreting or overreacting to evidence of human impacts on the climate system. However, the available evidence suggests that scientists have in fact been conservative in their projections of the impacts of climate change. In particular, we discuss recent studies showing that at least some of the key attributes of global warming from increased atmospheric greenhouse gases have been under-predicted, particularly in IPCC assessments of the physical science, by Working Group I. We also note the less frequent manifestation of over-prediction of key characteristics of climate in such assessments. We suggest, therefore, that scientists are biased not toward alarmism but rather the reverse: toward cautious estimates, where we define caution as erring on the side of less rather than more alarming predictions. We call this tendency “erring on the side of least drama (ESLD).â€

http://www.sciencedi...959378012001215

[keithlucky]

Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama?

http://www.sciencedi...959378012001215

On the other hand .

Former UN climate hoax chief de Boer: The next IPCC report "is going to scare the wits out of everyone"

Former UN official says climate report will shock nations into action

THE next United Nations climate report will ''scare the wits out of everyone'' and should provide the impetus needed for the world to finally sign an agreement to tackle global warming, the former head of the UN negotiations said.

Yvo de Boer, the UN climate chief during the 2009 Copenhagen climate change talks, said his conversations with scientists working on the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested the findings would be shocking.

"That report is going to scare the wits out of everyone,'' Mr de Boer said in the only scheduled interview of his visit to Australia. "I'm confident those scientific findings will create new political momentum.''

The IPCC's fifth assessment report is due to be published in late 2013 and early 2014.

What, specifically, are they going to tell us that we haven't already heard? If scientists have some incredibly persuasive evidence for us, and if our very survival is truly at stake, why not tell us now rather than waiting another year?

[laserguy]

"That report is going to scare the wits out of everyone,''.........

In the incredibly unlikely scenario that there is but a grain of truth in AGW I would not be scared in the slightest - I have much more pressing and immediate worries to deal with - and I'm just one of billions and for whom life is actually pretty easy right now. And ye, why not tell us now instead of many months hence - maybe the scriptwriters are still working on the plot and how it all ends?

[Methuselah]

On the other hand .

Former UN climate hoax chief de Boer: The next IPCC report "is going to scare the wits out of everyone"

Former UN official says climate report will shock nations into action

THE next United Nations climate report will ''scare the wits out of everyone'' and should provide the impetus needed for the world to finally sign an agreement to tackle global warming, the former head of the UN negotiations said.

Yvo de Boer, the UN climate chief during the 2009 Copenhagen climate change talks, said his conversations with scientists working on the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested the findings would be shocking.

"That report is going to scare the wits out of everyone,'' Mr de Boer said in the only scheduled interview of his visit to Australia. "I'm confident those scientific findings will create new political momentum.''

The IPCC's fifth assessment report is due to be published in late 2013 and early 2014.

What, specifically, are they going to tell us that we haven't already heard? If scientists have some incredibly persuasive evidence for us, and if our very survival is truly at stake, why not tell us now rather than waiting another year?

I don't know, Keith. But, to those of us capable of evaluating scientific evidence, the argument was over, years' ago??? Do the witterings of Oil & Gas-sponsored AGW septics really count?

Hi LG!

[keithlucky]

Or the 125 billion carbon tax a year global warmers want in the USA .Funny though a subject that was dropped in the run up to President Election.

[Gray-Wolf]

The scale of change needed to offset the worse we have already built into the climate system is not a vote winner KL. I've always maintained (along with many scientists studying AGW impacts) that Major climate crisis will be the only thing to sting 'politicians' into action. Without major voter pressure to adapt measures to mitigate the worse of the impacts in store no candidate is going to talk the billions in cost each nation must face. Odd when AGW impacted storms can cost over 20billion over a couple of days in the run up to the election though?

Why should the IPCC produce a report before time? We still have a year of important data prior to the release and though not included in the report events can only lend gravity to the issues it contains. I do not expect faux sceptics to accept the report (if more than 90% surety was not good enough then 99% surety will be no good either!)

As for impacts Polar sea ice has shown us how much worse impacts are becoming compared to the last IPCC's hamstrung report. With us recognising that warming is already far worse than predicted (but 'hidden' by the impacts of the associated pollution currently) we are no longer fighting to save us from the worst impacts but looking to mitigate those same impacts which we now accept are already in the pipeline. Particulate pollution leaves the system over a matter of a few short years (unlike the GHG's which can still impact after centuries) and we have already begun to clean the planets particulate pollution. The West have already made giant steps toward reducing the worst of our pollution and now , with the help of the West's tried and tested technology, Asia is beginning to also clean up it's polluting ways so we are already on the road to realising the full impact of the GHG forcing already in the system.

It was made quite plain that climate models have underestimated, by a factor of 10, the power of pollution to 'cool' the planet and yet that strength of 'cooling' has not stopped the top ten global temps from turning up year upon year (even whilst nature also tried to 'cool' the planet via her phases and the sun did it's best with an extended minimum and low solar max sunspot numbers.to cool the planet also).

So what do we have in store over this next 15yrs as the power of the sun is turned back up from it's full power and dimming fades?

[laserguy]

Or the 125 billion carbon tax a year global warmers want in the USA .Funny though a subject that was dropped in the run up to President Election.

I remember seeing Obama on the campaign trail, twixt Sandy and the election, trumping the recovery in the US motor industry and their lessened dependence on foreign oil, but no mention of Sandy let alone climate change. Hmm....

Eyup Pete!!

[Gray-Wolf]

C'mon guys! Politics is not climate change. The only time it is mentioned by politicians is in response to voter pressures. Politicians are 'forced' to include some tidbits for the folk who place them in power to remain in office whilst pursuing their own personal, political agenda.

The worse thing that occured to climate science was the 'greening' of politics in the 1980's. since then Politics has held back the action needed to salve the worst impacts that we have placed into the climate system, impacts not yet fully apperent but still in the sytem awaiting their 'day in the sun' (global dimming pun intended!).

Edited November 12, 2012 by Gray-Wolf

[keithlucky]

C'mon guys! Politics is not climate change. The only time it is mentioned by politicians is in response to voter pressures. Politicians are 'forced' to include some tidbits for the folk who place them in power to remain in office whilst pursuing their own personal, political agenda.

The worse thing that occured to climate science was the 'greening' of politics in the 1980's. since then Politics has held back the action needed to salve the worst impacts that we have placed into the climate system, impacts not yet fully apperent but still in the sytem awaiting their 'day in the sun' (global dimming pun intended!).

Climate change and politics go hand in hand Al Gore its making a bloody fortune out of green renewable energies ,and on this side of the World 2 ex Tory ministers are on board of the wind farm company and you wrong GW as mentioned previously most people are against renewable energy because the private energy companies use green energy as a excuse for massive price increases.

[laserguy]

C'mon guys! Politics is not climate change. The only time it is mentioned by politicians is in response to voter pressures.

Please tell me when it's OK to stop laughing at that.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Climate change is a scientific topic first and foremost, not a political one.

Sad, but ultimately not unexpected, to see how many people here fail to grasp that.

[Admiral_Bobski]

It was made quite plain that climate models have underestimated, by a factor of 10, the power of pollution to 'cool' the planet and yet that strength of 'cooling' has not stopped the top ten global temps from turning up year upon year (even whilst nature also tried to 'cool' the planet via her phases and the sun did it's best with an extended minimum and low solar max sunspot numbers.to cool the planet also).

So what do we have in store over this next 15yrs as the power of the sun is turned back up from it's full power and dimming fades?

As a point of order, 1) we don't actually know what the Sun is going to do over the next few cycles and 2) the LI (if anyone remembers that) did predict that temperatures wouldn't start to drop for about a decade or so. Has the Sun "done its best" yet, or is it still working on it?

Here's me, CB, still banging on about the Sun...

[loafer]

From "The Register"

Forget Hurricane Sandy - fear the peat powered freeze

By Lewis Page

Posted in Science, 9th November 2012 15:58 GMT

A group of Swedish scientists at the University of Gothenburg have published a paper in which they argue that spreading peatlands are inexorably driving planet Earth into its next ice age, and the only thing holding back catastrophe is humanity's hotly debated atmospheric carbon emissions.

"We are probably entering a new ice age right now. However, we're not noticing it due to the effects of carbon dioxide," says Professor of Physical Geography Lars Franzén, from the Department of Earth Sciences at Gothenburg uni.

Franzén and his colleagues have examined various scenarios for the peatlands of Sweden, which are a continually expanding "dynamic landscape element". According to the scientists:

Peatlands grow in height and spread across their surroundings by waterlogging woodlands. They are also one of the biggest terrestrial sinks of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Each year, around 20 grams of carbon are absorbed by every square metre of peatland.

The scientists have calculated that the potential is there for Swedish peatlands to triple in extent, enormously increasing their carbon sink effect. By extrapolating to include the rest of the world's high-latitude temperate areas - the parts of the globe where peatland can expand as it does in Sweden - they project the creation of an extremely powerful carbon sink. They theorise that this is the mechanism which tends to force the Earth back into prolonged ice ages after each relatively brief "interglacial" warm period.

"Carbon sequestration in peatland may be one of the main reasons why ice age conditions have occurred time after time," says Franzén.

With no other factors in play, the time is about right for the present interglacial to end and the next ice age to come on. Indeed, Franzén and his crew think it has barely been staved off by human activity:

The researchers believe that the Little Ice Age of the 16th to 18th centuries may have been halted as a result of human activity. Increased felling of woodlands and growing areas of agricultural land, combined with the early stages of industrialisation, resulted in increased emissions of carbon dioxide which probably slowed down, or even reversed, the cooling trend.

Other scientists have attributed the Little Ice Age to a quiet period in the Sun's activity: others say it was purely a local effect in Europe, though that theory has lately been disproved by research in Antarctica.

In any case, the scientists assess that if it weren't for human activity such as carbon emissions, we could expect a new ice era in short order. They write:

Thus, on a global scale, carbon sequestration in peatlands may have had important climate cooling effects towards the ends of previous interglacials ... It cannot be ruled out that similar effects would be seen in a hypothetical Holocene lacking human presence.

It's probably worth noting that the great physicist Freeman Dyson long ago suggested that only relatively small amounts of new peatland would be enough to sequestrate colossal amounts of CO₂ from the air. Other scientists have noted in recent times that brief warming spells like that observed at the end of the 20th century appear to have occurred towards the end of previous interglacial periods - just before the glaciers returned.

If Franzén and his team are right, the big chill is now under way, and is only just being held off by increasing human carbon emissions - perhaps explaining why temperatures have been merely flat for the last 15 years or so, rather than descending.

The Swedish scientists' paper is published in the peer-reviewed journal Mires and Peat, and can be read here in pdf.

Comment

Naturally this theory runs counter to the global warming scenario as presented by many other scientists and most of the media. That stance has lately been boosted by wildly unjustifiable assertions that global warming caused Hurricane Sandy. Unfortunately if you believe that isolated events prove theories, you would pretty much have to accept that global warming has stopped: ten to fifteen years of flat temperatures, or even a few very cold winters - both of which have just happened - are a lot more significant than one storm (and they still aren't significant enough to mean anything much in a climate context). ®

[Gray-Wolf]

As I've said guys Politics may use climate change but climate change would still exist as a threat with or without political interest.

Why not , if you can manage it, remove all thoughts of 'cost' from your mind and just look at the science and the observations/data it has provided us with over the last 50yrs or so?

Hi C-Bob!

I'm happy to see you still keep an eye on us in here!!

From what I'm given to believe the impacts that particulate pollution impart are far greater than any solar variation we have measured? The 'Horizon' docu had a guy advising us that climate models had used a figure fro lost solar (due to dimming) of 0.5 to 1% but the global average of deflected solar seems to be nearer to 10% of that arriving here?

I've only ever seen the figures that folk use to highlight how small a variation in solar input solar max and solar min give us and that was in the zero point something range. If such a small variance can drive global impacts then what the sneck can a full 10% increase in that energy do to us now we have extra GHG's on board to hold onto some of that extra heating?

The predictions and reality of both the extended solar min and the pitiful cycle 24 have me understand how limited our knowledge of the workings of the sun are but long term proxy records of it's impacts do reassure me that we have no big surprises awaiting us?

So, if we only glimpsed the potential for the suns impacts on global temps (with current elevated GHG's) in the 80's (as our Western climate was cleaned up by the clean air acts) before it was again clobbered by the Asian pollution as their energy boom took off, then what will we see as they now clean up their pollution?

We have a planet that has undergone changes in the 30yrs between the last heating blip (as the haze cleared) and the one that is now getting underway. We have a darker Arctic over summer and far more GHG's on board to hold onto the extra solar inputs we will start to amass.

I fear that any downward move in solar output would be massively outweighed by both the atmosphere's enhanced capacity to hold onto heat and the loss of our current 'sun shade'.

EDIT: Just seen the Article above! I've never seen such a skewed view of a paper that I had preciously read!

When i read it it was more concerned at the destruction of the peatlands (20% over the past century) as it played such an important role in CO2 sequestration. We all know that a warming world will also destroy the peat by allowing drying and burn off.

When I read the paper it appeared to be saying that peat was so important in the onset of past glaciations that our destruction of it may well take us out of our current spell of glacial/interglacial that has been ongoing these past millions of years?

Talk about taking what you want from a paper???

Edited November 12, 2012 by Gray-Wolf

[laserguy]

Climate change is a scientific topic first and foremost, not a political one.

Sad, but ultimately not unexpected, to see how many people here fail to grasp that.

Climate change and politics are inextricably linked - but the first one does not exist as a human-induced phenomenon,though politicians wil try to convince us otherwise. Sad how many fail to see that,too.

[pottyprof]

Yvo de Boer, the UN climate chief during the 2009 Copenhagen climate change talks, said his conversations with scientists working on the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested the findings would be shocking.

If this is true, then I think we need to be asking our dear leaders to ask just what the hell they are playing at?

These idiots are supposed to be advising world leaders on policy. If they know something that is going to 'shock' people then I think we need to know now, not in a years time. This is just the thing which makes people question the whole debate. Whoever has sponsored this goon needs to be asking more than a few questions.

What a joke.

Edited November 12, 2012 by pottyprof

[knocker]

Cultural dimensions of climate change are underestimated, overlooked and misunderstood

The impact of climate change on many aspects of cultural life for people all over the world is not being sufficiently accounted for by scientists and policy-makers

The impact of climate change on many aspects of cultural life for people all over the world is not being sufficiently accounted for by scientists and policy-makers. University of Exeter-led research by an international team, published on 11th November in Nature Climate Change, shows that cultural factors are key to making climate change real to people and to motivating their responses.

From enjoying beaches or winter sports and visiting iconic natural spaces to using traditional methods of agriculture and construction in our daily lives, the research highlights the cultural experiences that bind our communities and are under threat as a result of climate change. The paper argues that governments' programmes for dealing with the consequences of climate change do not give enough consideration to what really matters to individuals and communities.

Culture binds people together and helps them overcome threats to their environments and livelihoods. Some are already experiencing such threats and profound changes to their lives. For example, the Polynesian Island of Niue, which experiences cyclones, has a population of 1,500 with four times as many Niueans now living in New Zealand. The research shows that most people remaining on the island resist migrating because of a strong attachment to the island. There is strong evidence to suggest that it is important for people's emotional well-being to have control over whether and where they move. The researchers argue that these psychological factors have not been addressed.

Lead researcher Professor Neil Adger of the University of Exeter said: "Governments have not yet addressed the cultural losses we are all facing as a result of global climate change and this could have catastrophic consequences. If the cultural dimensions of climate change continue to be ignored, it is likely that responses will fail to be effective because they simply do not connect with what matters to individuals and communities. It is vital that the cultural impact of climate change is considered, alongside plans to adapt our physical spaces to the changing environment."

Professor Katrina Brown from the University of Exeter's Environment and Sustainability Institute adds: "The evidence is clear; when people experience the impacts of climate change in places that matter to them, the problems become real and they are motivated to make their futures more sustainable. This is as true in coastal Cornwall as in Pacific Islands."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-11/uoe-cdo110912.php

[BornFromTheVoid]

Climate change and politics are inextricably linked - but the first one does not exist as a human-induced phenomenon,though politicians wil try to convince us otherwise. Sad how many fail to see that,too.

Good job I don't take much notice of baseless proclamations like that, but try stick to the science

If this is true, then I think we need to be asking our dear leaders to ask just what the hell they are playing at?

These idiots are supposed to be advising world leaders on policy. If they know something that is going to 'shock' people then I think we need to know now, not in a years time. This is just the thing which makes people question the whole debate. Whoever has sponsored this goon needs to be asking more than a few questions.

What a joke.

Shocking is a subjective term though.

Besides, it takes time to collate all the different studies and model results for the climate change report. If they rushed it and did a half job, then showed shocking predictions, many folk would lambaste them for being alarmist and not investigating things properly (not that they don't already).

Anywho, politics is politics, science is science. Just as much as arrogant militant atheists don't make me question the science of evolution, idiotic self serving politicians don't make me question the science of climate change.

[pottyprof]

Anywho, politics is politics, science is science. Just as much as arrogant militant atheists don't make me question the science of evolution, idiotic self serving politicians don't make me question the science of climate change.

Fair point.

I hope they pick him up on it though...