Preliminary IPCC report predicts increased weather extremes
There is at least a 2-in-3 probability that climate extremes have already worsened because of human-caused releases of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide, and some types of extreme weather events will increase in the coming decades as huge cost, says a preliminary draft of an international climate report leaked to the Associated Press (AP) this week. The Nobel Prize-winning United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issues reports on the state of the scientific knowledge of climate change every six years, with the next full report due out in 2013. However, the IPCC is working on a special report detailing the evidence that extreme weather events may be increasing due to climate change, and how we might best prepare for the coming increase in these costly and dangerous events. The IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters (SREX) is due to be released later this month, after a meeting in Uganda, where diplomats will recommend changes to the preliminary document leaked to AP. The IPCC requires that all countries agree unanimously on the content of the official reports, so the language of the leaked report may undergo considerable change. In the AP article, University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver, who was not among the authors, is quoted as saying that the report was written to be “so bland” that it may not matter to world leaders. With the diplomats free to make changes to the report, I think it is likely that the already bland SREX report will be further watered down. Despite all the objections one hears about the extreme and dire predictions of the IPCC, the science in these reports is actually very conservative and watered down, due to the requirement that the language must be approved by every country (including oil producing nations such as Saudi Arabia.) So, it should grab our attention that the preliminary draft of the SREX report predicts that some regions of the world might suffer extremes so severe as to leave them "increasingly marginal places to live", heat waves could peak at 5°F hotter by 2050 and 9°F hotter by 2100, and intense single-day rainstorms that happen only once every twenty years now will happen up to once every five years by 2100. I'll have more on the SREX report after its official release.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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People pumped ~512million more (metric) tonnes of carbon into the air in 2010 than they did in 2009, an increase of 6%. That extra pollution exceeds the individual emissions of all but 3 countries...
...China (2,248megatonnes), the UnitedStates (1,498megatonnes), and India (564megatonnes).
Simply put, it's all India's fault. Reducing India's carbon emissions to 52megatonnes would eliminate the increase.
Extra emissions from China and the U.S. account for more than half of the increase last year... hrrrm... May hafta eliminate Russia's contribution to make up for 2011.
The carbon emissions for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change four years ago...
...which led to a projected global temperature increase of 4to11degreesFahrenheit with the best estimate at 7.5degrees by the end of the century.
The IPCC's worst case scenario was about in the middle of what the Massachusetts Institute of Technology calculated to be likely scenarios.
The good news is, the developed countries that ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gas limiting treaty have reduced their emissions overall since then and have achieved their goals of cutting emissions to about 8% below 1990 levels.
The U.S. did not ratify the agreement, and that lack of commitment shows.
I could understand this better if I knew what PDO is?
You can't pick and choose what 'science' you believe in. It's all connected. If you don't 'believe' what comes out of Jeff Masters mouth when he utters the word 'global warming', then I would suggest leaving this website because you have invalidated his opinion on any other climate or meteorological event as well.
You don't think the "Heat Content" in the ocean that powers hurricanes doesn't rely on the same science that proves the greenhouse effect and a warming world?
It's time to Buck Up.
The science proves that global warming is happening.
The science proves that it is changing our climate in both predictable and unpredictable ways
The science proves that the only known process able to create that change is Greenhouse Gases
The *numbers* proves that the only Greenhouse gas rising enough to create that Greenhouse Effect are CO2 and Methane emitted by human activity.
Dr. Jeff Masters is simply relaying this information to you. He is showing you the proof everyday.
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