Warming gases rising faster than expected

[IDemo]

Humans adding carbon to the atmosphere even quicker than in the 1990s

AP -updated 6:35 p.m. MT, Sat., Feb. 14, 2009

CHICAGO - Despite widespread concern over global warming, humans are adding carbon to the atmosphere even faster than in the 1990s, researchers warned Saturday.

Carbon dioxide and other gases added to the air by industrial and other activities have been blamed for rising temperatures, increasing worries about possible major changes in weather and climate.

Carbon emissions have been growing at 3.5 percent per year since 2000, up sharply from the 0.9 percent per year in the 1990s, Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution for Science told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"It is now outside the entire envelope of possibilities" considered in the 2007 report of the International Panel on Climate Change, he said. The IPCC and former vice president Al Gore received the Nobel Prize for drawing attention to climate change.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29199545/

[kestrel91316]

1. Homo sapiens = toast.

[notesdev]

2. Sorry it's my fault

Coffee and burritos... love 'em going in, coming out I have to give air quality warnings.

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Scientists: Pace of Climate Change Exceeds Estimates

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/14/AR2009021401757.html

Scientists: Pace of Climate Change Exceeds Estimates

By Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 15, 2009; A03

CHICAGO, Feb. 14 -- The pace of global warming is likely to be much faster than recent predictions, because industrial greenhouse gas emissions have increased more quickly than expected and higher temperatures are triggering self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms in global ecosystems, scientists said Saturday.

"We are basically looking now at a future climate that's beyond anything we've considered seriously in climate model simulations," Christopher Field, founding director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, said at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Field, a member of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said emissions from burning fossil fuels since 2000 have largely outpaced the estimates used in the U.N. panel's 2007 reports. The higher emissions are largely the result of the increased burning of coal in developing countries, he said.

Unexpectedly large amounts of carbon dioxide are being released into the atmosphere as the result of "feedback loops" that are speeding up natural processes. Prominent among these, evidence indicates, is a cycle in which higher temperatures are beginning to melt the arctic permafrost, which could release hundreds of billions of tons of carbon and methane into the atmosphere, said several scientists on a panel at the meeting.

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[OKIsItJustMe]

4. Global temperatures set to soar - but it will be a cold lonely universe

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5733660.ece

From The Sunday Times
February 15, 2009

Global temperatures set to soar - but it will be a cold lonely universe

Humanity may face global temperature rises of 3C-4C because greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are increasing so rapidly, scientists have warned.

The prediction came from Chris Field, director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology.

“Over the past decade, developing countries such as China and India have increased electric power generation by burning more coal,” said Field. “Economies in the developing world are becoming more, not less, carbon-intensive and impacts are very likely to be much worse than predicted.”

— A cosmologist has drawn up a bleak forecast for the universe, suggesting it will become unimaginably cold and empty.

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[OKIsItJustMe]

5. Global warming 'underestimated'—severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7890988.stm

Global warming 'underestimated'

The severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse than previously believed, a leading climate scientist has warned.

Professor Chris Field, an author of a 2007 landmark report on climate change, said future temperatures "will be beyond anything" predicted.

Prof Field said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report had underestimated the rate of change.

He said warming is likely to cause more environmental damage than forecast.

Speaking at the American Science conference in Chicago, Prof Field said fresh data showed greenhouse gas emissions between 2000 and 2007 increased far more rapidly than expected.

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[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Scientist issues warning about climate change

http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=11201

Uploaded: Saturday, February 14, 2009, 9:48 AM

Scientist issues warning about climate change

Stanford's Chris Field speaks on global warming at national meeting in Chicago

by Don Kazak
Palo Alto Online Staff

A Stanford University scientist speaking at a national meeting in Chicago Saturday morning warned that climate change in the 21st century is going to be more accelerated and create more environmental damage through global warming than previously thought.

Accelerated global warming could ignite tropical forests and melt the Arctic tundra, releasing billions of tons of greenhouse gas that could raise global temperatures even more, according to Chris Field.

The net result could be a cycle that spins out of control by the end of the century.

…

"There is a real risk that human-caused climate change will accelerate the release of carbon dioxide from forest and tundra ecosystems, which have been storing a lot of carbon for thousands of years," Fields said. "We don't want to cross a critical threshold where this massive release of carbon starts to run on autopilot."

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