Time for some Category 5 scaremongering
Global temperature rises could be double those predicted by climate modelling
Researchers say sea levels could also rise by six metres or more even if 2 degree target of Paris accord met
Temperature rises as a result of global warming could eventually be double what has been projected by climate models, according to an international team of researchers from 17 countries.
Sea levels could also rise by six metres or more even if the world does meet the 2 degree target of the Paris accord.
The findings, published last week in Nature Geoscience, were based on observations of evidence from three warm periods in the past 3.5m years in which global temperatures were 0.5-2 degrees above the pre-industrial temperatures of the 19th century.
Computer models and reconstructions are not observations.
The scientists used a range of measurements to piece together the impacts of past climatic changes to examine how a warmer earth would appear once the climate has stabilised.
They found sustained warming of one to two degrees had been accompanied by substantial reductions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and sea level rises of at least six metres – several metres higher than what current climate models predict could occur by 2100.
“During that time, the temperatures were much warmer than what our models are predicting and the sea levels were much higher,†said Katrin Meissner from the University of New South Wales’s Climate Change Research Centre and one of the study’s lead authors.
So, wait, it was supposedly much warmer? What caused that warming, and why are those warm periods different from now?
Meissner said potential changes even at two degrees of warming were underestimated in climate models that focused on the near term.
“Climate models appear to be trustworthy for small changes, such as for low-emission scenarios over short periods, say over the next few decades out to 2100,†she said. “But as the change gets larger or more persistent … it appears they underestimate climate change.â€
This can all be fixed with a tax and ceding your freedom to government, you know
“Observations of past warming periods suggest that a number of amplifying mechanisms, which are poorly represented in climate models, increase long-term warming beyond climate model projections,†Prof Hubertus Fischer of the University of Bern, one of the study’s lead authors.
I’d like to see those direct temperature measurements gathered during those times…..oh, right, reconstructions.
