Global Temperature Goals Could Become Impossible With Climate Inaction, Study Finds

[Judi Lynn]

Global Temperature Goals Could Become Impossible With Climate Inaction, Study Finds
Posted: 01/03/2013 3:14 pm EST | Updated: 01/03/2013 3:43 pm EST



The dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice this summer is just one of the signs global warming has not stopped, scientists say. (Jeremy Potter NOAA/OAR/OER)


By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer:

Delaying global action on climate change by 20 more years will put the goal of keeping the world relatively cool out of reach forever, no matter how much money humanity later spends to try to solve the problem, a new study finds.

Since the 1990s, scientists and international negotiators have aimed to keep global temperatures from warming more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), but little progress has been made so far in concrete steps toward that goal. The most recent climate talks, in Qatar in December, ended with only modest steps that fail to address growing greenhouse gas emissions, climate scientists said.

It's these delays that ultimately make dealing with climate change more expensive and perhaps eventually impossible, according to a study published this week (Jan. 4) in the journal Nature. While it's true there are still uncertainties about how the climate will respond to specific strategies, these uncertainties are nothing compared with potential disaster caused by delay, said study researcher Joeri Rogelj of Switzerland's Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich.

"The uncertainties about how the climate system will respond have been previously used as an argument to postpone action until we have learned more," Rogelj told LiveScience. "We show that such a delay strategy is unsupported and that the most important factor for staying below 2 degrees C is the timing of when we start tackling this problem at a global scale."

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/03/global-temperature-goals_n_2404322.html?utm_hp_ref=business&ir=Business

[Speck Tater]

1. If we keep doing what we've been doing...

we will keep getting what we've been getting!

Who could possibly have imagined such an outcome?

The fact that anyone would find this surprising is more proof that the human race is too stupid to survive extinction.

[longship]

2. You can pay now, or pay later.

The cost now, although maybe great will pale compared to the costs later. Plus, we will have additional costs like Katrina, Sandy, the droughts, big tornadoes, etc. nobody seems to want to factor those into the equation.

Yes, the connections are a bit tenuous, but we do know that such events should be more prominent on a warmer planet.

What I worry about are the positive feedbacks built into the system. That is downright frightening. It looks like one of them, Arctic ice melt reducing albedo, is kicking in big time faster than anybody predicted.

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. See also…

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112732123

[GliderGuider]

4. Quick, somebody close that barn door.

The horse is already out. We have +2C in the pipeline already, no need to worry about that any more.