The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was wrong about global warming; according to the United States Geological Survey, it’s actually happening faster than expected:
Looking at factors such as rapid sea ice loss in the Arctic and prolonged drought in the Southwest, the new assessment suggests that earlier projections may have underestimated the climatic shifts that could take place by 2100.
However, the assessment also suggests that some other feared effects of global warming are not likely to occur by the end of the century, such as an abrupt release of methane from the seabed and permafrost or a shutdown of the Atlantic Ocean circulation system that brings warm water north and colder water south. But the report projects an amount of potential sea level rise during that period that may be greater than what other researchers have anticipated, as well as a shift to a more arid climate pattern in the Southwest by mid-century.
Thirty-two scientists from federal and non-federal institutions contributed to the report, which took nearly two years to complete. The Climate Change Science Program, which was established in 1990, coordinates the climate research of 13 different federal agencies.
In one of the report’s most worrisome findings, the agency estimates that in light of recent ice sheet melting, global sea level rise could be as much as four feet by 2100. The IPCC had projected a sea level rise of no more than 1.5 feet by that time, but satellite data over the past two years show the world’s major ice sheets are melting much more rapidly than previously thought. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are now losing an average of 48 cubic miles of ice a year, equivalent to twice the amount of ice that exists in the Alps.
Konrad Steffen, who directs the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder and was lead author on the report’s chapter on ice sheets, said the models the IPCC used did not factor in some of the dynamics that scientists now understand about ice sheet melting. Among other things, Steffen and his collaborators have identified a process of “lubrication,” in which warmer ocean water gets in underneath coastal ice sheets and accelerates melting.
While predictions remain uncertain, Steffen said cutting emissions linked to global warming represents one of the best strategies for averting catastrophic changes.
“We have to act very fast, by understanding better and by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, because it’s a large-scale experiment that can get out of hand,” Steffen said. “So we don’t want that to happen.”
But, according to conservatives, global warming is a hoax because it still gets cold in winter.