No matter how well the world controls emissions of greenhouse gases, global climate change is inevitable, warn two new studies which take into account the oceans' slow response to warming. Even if greenhouse gases never rise beyond their present level, temperatures and sea levels will continue rising for another century or more because of a time lag in the oceans' response to atmospheric temperatures, say researchers. This time lag means policymakers cannot afford to wait to tackle climate change until its consequences become painful, because by then they will already be committed to further change, they urge. "The feeling is that if things are getting bad, you hit the stop button. But even if you do, the climate continues to change," says Gerald Meehl, a climatologist at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. Meehl and his colleagues used two sophisticated computer models of global climate to predict what would happen under various scenarios for greenhouse gas emission controls, taking into account the oceanic time lag. Their most optimistic scenario - in which atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are capped at year 2000 levels - would require severe cuts in CO2 emissions, far beyond those set in the Kyoto protocol. But even this optimistic scenario predicts that global temperatures would continue to rise by between 0.4°C and 0.6°C over the next century. That increase is comparable to the increase in global temperature during the 20th century of about 0.6°C. A second, independent study using a simpler climate model by Tom Wigley, another climatologist at NCAR, paints the same bleak picture. Read the rest here This is all down to thermal inertia, which is impossible to stop in relative time periods. :sun:
Well if my children have to deal with it, it's not my problem! I'm sure we'll have colonies on the moon by 2010, then Mars....we'll be fine.
I have an acre of land on the moon,mars and venus. I dunno how they are REALLY mine but i got a certificate of ownership lol. So if we can ever live on the moon in my lifetime I can build a house on my acre....and have a nice big garden
We could have been there by now, is the US didn't hoard all the technological advancements of germany under hitler's regime. We're still going through thousands of tons of documents that were war booty. Hope my name doesn't go on some list >_> <_<
