[MCN] Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Global warming: Stop worrying, start panicking?

[Lance Olsen]

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

September 23, 2008 

Global warming: Stop worrying, start panicking?

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber

In their excellent Perspectives article in this issue, Ramanathan and  Feng (R&F) sound a harsh wake-up  call for those concerned about anthropogenic climate change: the authors  maintain that the greenhouse gas (GHG)  emissions of the past have already loaded  the Earth System sufficiently to bring  about disastrous global warming. In other words, the ultimate goal of climate protection policy, as stipulated by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), appears to be a delusion.

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Bangkok Post  January 14, 2020

New climate models suggest Paris goals may be out of reach

The models suggest scientists have for decades consistently underestimated the warming potential of CO2.

<<https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1835479/new-climate-models-suggest-paris-goals-may-be-out-of-reach <https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1835479/new-climate-models-suggest-paris-goals-may-be-out-of-reach>>>

Excerpts

PARIS: New climate models show carbon dioxide is a more potent greenhouse gas than previously understood, a finding that could push the Paris treaty goals for capping global warming out of reach, scientists have told AFP.

The most influential projections from government-backed teams in the US, Britain, France and Canada point to a future in which CO2 concentrations that have long been equated with a 3C world would more likely heat the planet's surface by four or five degrees.

"Right now, there is an enormously heated debate within the climate modelling community," said Earth system scientist Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

"You have 12 or 13 models showing sensitivity which is no longer 3C, but rather 5C or 6C with a doubling of CO2," he told AFP. "What is particularly worrying is that these are not the outliers."

Models from France, the US Department of Energy, Britain's Met Office and Canada show climate sensitivity of 4.9C, 5.3C, 5.5C and 5.6C respectively, Zelinka said.

Among the 27 new models examined in Zelinka's study, these were also among the ones that best matched climate change over the last 75 years, a further validation of their accuracy.
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"The jury is still out, but it is worrying," said Rockstrom.

"Climate sensitivity has been in the range of 1.5C to 4.5C for more than 30 years. If it is now moving to between 3C and 7C, that would be tremendously dangerous."
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