By Leigh Dayton, Science writer
The Australian
January 27, 2005
The largest ever climate-change experiment reveals that scientists may have dramatically underestimated the threat of global
warming.
The study by British scientists, which is published today, found the planet's global temperature could climb by between 2C
and 11C because of skyrocketing levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.
That more than doubles the current prediction of a 1.4C to 4.5C rise this century.
"When we started out we didn't expect anything like this," said Oxford University's David Stainforth, chief scientist for
climateprediction.net.
The project is a collaboration of experts at Oxford and Reading universities, The Open University, London School of
Economics, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.
The findings are published in the journal Nature.
"If this is the case, it's very dramatic and very scary," Mr Stainforth said.
Even rises that are more modest are expected to trigger disastrous changes, including melting glaciers, sea-level rises,
shut-down of the Gulf Stream, and increases in droughts, cyclones and other extreme weather events. The new results follow
two reports in last week's edition of Science, showing that global warming probably caused the "Great Dying".
Although that was the worst extinction in Earth's history - wiping out more than 90 per cent of all life - it involved
gradual extinctions over about 10 million years, culminating in a sharp extinction pulse 250 million years ago. Further
concern comes from an international report released in London last Monday. It warned that climate change could kick in
within 10 years, unless greenhouse gas emissions are cut.
The initial goal of climateprediction.net was to evaluate the sensitivity and variables of the Hadley computer model of
climate change.
In order to obtain their findings, Mr Stainforth and his colleagues ran 50,000 climate simulations.
Because so much computing power was needed, they relied on help from 90,000 people from 150 countries to run the programs on
their personal computers.
More than 1200 Australians, such as Melbourne academic Nick Hoffman, participated. "I'm interested in the dynamics of
planetary atmospheres, so it was well worth supporting (the project)," Dr Hoffman said.
According to Neville Nicholls, head of climate forecasting at the Bureau of Meterology in Melbourne, climateprediction.net
is a "terrific project" that tackles the uncertainty of climate predictions. He agreed with CSIRO climate modeler Tony Hirst
that: "This may mean that the world could warm up faster than most of us are happy anticipating."
Global warming approaching point of no return, warns leading climate expert
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
The Independent
January 23, 2005
Global warning has already hit the danger point that international attempts to curb it are designed to avoid, according to
the world's top climate watchdog.
Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told an international
conference attended by 114 governments in Mauritius this month that he personally believes that the world has "already
reached the level of dangerous concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere" and called for immediate and "very deep"
cuts in the pollution if humanity is to "survive".
His comments rocked the Bush administration - which immediately tried to slap him down - not least because it put him in his
post after Exxon, the major oil company most opposed to international action on global warming, complained that his
predecessor was too "aggressive" on the issue.
A memorandum from Exxon to the White House in early 2001 specifically asked it to get the previous chairman, Dr Robert
Watson, the chief scientist of the World Bank, "replaced at the request of the US". The Bush administration then lobbied
other countries in favour of Dr Pachauri - whom the former vice-president Al Gore called the "let's drag our feet"
candidate, and got him elected to replace Dr Watson, a British-born naturalised American, who had repeatedly called for
urgent action.
But this month, at a conference of Small Island Developing States on the Indian Ocean island, the new chairman, a former
head of India's Tata Energy Research Institute, himself issued what top United Nations officials described as a "very
courageous" challenge.
He told delegates: "Climate change is for real. We have just a small window of opportunity and it is closing rather rapidly.
There is not a moment to lose."
Afterwards he told The Independent on Sunday that widespread dying of coral reefs, and rapid melting of ice in the Arctic,
had driven him to the conclusion that the danger point the IPCC had been set up to avoid had already been reached.
Reefs throughout the world are perishing as the seas warm up: as water temperatures rise, they lose their colours and turn a
ghostly white. Partly as a result, up to a quarter of the world's corals have been destroyed.
And in November, a multi-year study by 300 scientists concluded that the Arctic was warming twice as fast as the rest of the
world and that its ice-cap had shrunk by up to 20 per cent in the past three decades.
The ice is also 40 per cent thinner than it was in the 1970s and is expected to disappear altogether by 2070. And while Dr
Pachauri was speaking parts of the Arctic were having a January "heatwave", with temperatures eight to nine degrees
centigrade higher than normal.
He also cited alarming measurements, first reported in The Independent on Sunday, showing that levels of carbon dioxide
(the main cause of global warming) have leapt abruptly over the past two years, suggesting that climate change may be
accelerating out of control.
He added that, because of inertia built into the Earth's natural systems, the world was now only experiencing the result of
pollution emitted in the 1960s, and much greater effects would occur as the increased pollution of later decades worked its
way through. He concluded: "We are risking the ability of the human race to survive."
Global Warming: Scientists Reveal Timetable
February 3, 2005
by Michael McCarthy
The Independent/UK
A detailed timetable of the destruction and distress that global warming is likely to cause the world was unveiled yesterday.
It pulls together for the first time the projected impacts on ecosystems and wildlife, food production, water resources and
economies across the earth, for given rises in global temperature expected during the next hundred years.
The resultant picture gives the most wide-ranging impression yet of the bewildering array of destructive effects that
climate change is expected to exert on different regions, from the mountains of Europe and the rainforests of the Amazon to
the coral reefs of the tropics.
There will be a rapid increase in populations exposed to hunger, with up to 5.5 billion people living in regions with large
losses in crop production, while another 3 billion people will have increased risk of water shortages. (AFP/François Anardin)
Produced through a synthesis of a wide range of recent academic studies, it was presented as a paper yesterday to the
international conference on climate change being held at the UK Met Office headquarters in Exeter by the author Bill Hare,
of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany's leading global warming research institute.
The conference has been called personally by Tony Blair as part of Britain's attempts to move the climate change issue up
the agenda during the current UK presidency of the G8 group of rich nations, and the European Union. It has already heard
disturbing warnings from the latest climate research, including the revelation on Tuesday from the British Antarctic Survey
that the massive West Antarctic ice sheet might be disintegrating - an event which, if it happened completely, would raise
sea levels around the world by 16ft (4.9 meters).
Dr Hare's timetable shows the impacts of climate change multiplying rapidly as average global temperature goes up, towards
1C above levels before the industrial revolution, then to 2C, and then 3C.
As present world temperatures are already 0.7C above the pre-industrial level, the process is well under way. In the near
future - the next 25 years - as the temperature climbs to the 1C mark, some specialized ecosystems will start to feel
stress, such as the tropical highland forests of Queensland, which contain a large number of Australia's endemic plant
species, and the succulent karoo plant region of South Africa. In some developing countries, food production will start to
decline, water shortage problems will worsen and there will be net losses in GDP.
It is when the temperature moves up to 2C above the pre-industrial level, expected in the middle of this century - within
the lifetime of many people alive today - that serious effects start to come thick and fast, studies suggest.
Substantial losses of Arctic sea ice will threaten species such as polar bears and walruses, while in tropical regions
"bleaching" of coral reefs will become more frequent - when the animals that live in the coral are forced out by high
temperatures and the reef may die. Mediterranean regions will be hit by more forest fires and insect pests, while in regions
of the US such as the Rockies, rivers may become too warm for trout and salmon.
In South Africa, the Fynbos, the world's most remarkable floral kingdom which has more than 8,000 endemic wild flowers, will
start to lose its species, as will alpine areas from Europe to Australia; the broad-leaved forests of China will start to
die. The numbers at risk from hunger will increase and another billion and a half people will face water shortages, and GDP
losses in some developing countries will become significant.
But when the temperature moves up to the 3C level, expected in the early part of the second half of the century, these
effects will become critical. There is likely to be irreversible damage to the Amazon rainforest, leading to its collapse,
and the complete destruction of coral reefs is likely to be widespread.
The alpine flora of Europe, Australia and New Zealand will probably disappear completely, with increasing numbers of
extinctions of other plant species. There will be severe losses of China's broadleaved forests, and in South Africa the
flora of the Succulent Karoo will be destroyed, and the flora of the Fynbos will be hugely damaged.
There will be a rapid increase in populations exposed to hunger, with up to 5.5 billion people living in regions with large
losses in crop production, while another 3 billion people will have increased risk of water shortages.
Above the 3C raised level, which may be after 2070, the effects will be catastrophic: the Arctic sea ice will disappear, and
species such as polar bears and walruses may disappear with it, while the main prey species of Arctic carnivores, such as
wolves, Arctic foxes and the collared lemming, will have gone from 80 per cent of their range, critically endangering
predators.
In human terms there is likely to be catastrophe too, with water stress becoming even worse, and whole regions becoming
unsuitable for producing food, while there will be substantial impacts on global GDP.
