[Mb-civic] Global warming may be even hotter

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Global warming may be even 
hotter
The Sydney Morning Herald
SMH.com.au
By Deborah Smith Science Editor
March 1, 2006
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will warn the 
world's politicians that the Earth's temperature could rise far 
higher in response to greenhouse gas emissions than previously 
thought.
A secret draft version of the next report by the United Nation's 
influential panel of climate experts, to be given to governments 
in April, will say a reliable upper limit can no longer be put on 
how quickly the world will warm, according to the British 
newspaper The Guardian.
Australian scientists said the reported warning reflected a 
growing body of recent research showing that climate 
change was occurring more rapidly than expected.
Some computer models have now forseen temperature increases 
of as much as 11 degrees C. (20 F.) from a doubling of carbon 
dioxide levels in the atmosphere. The climate change panel had 
assumed a doubling of carbon dioxide levels would lead to a 
temperature rise of between 1.5 degrees and 4.5 degrees.
Dr Barrie Pittock, a retired CSIRO researcher and the author of 
Climate Change, Turning up the Heat, said models of climate 
change always involved a range of uncertainty, but the 
possibility of a large increase in temperature had to be taken very 
seriously. "If you're taking a risk-management approach and 
want to avoid what is disastrous you have got to [look at] the 
upper end of the range and [then] avoid that," he said.
Professor Ian Lowe, an environmental scientist and president of 
the Australian Conservation Foundation, said he hoped the 
report would convince the Australian Government of the 
seriousness of the issue because it was still listening to the last 
"10 or 12 sceptics of the world".




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