NASA’s James Hansen’s New Climate Warning

Climate scientist James Hansen has issued a new draft report on climate change with a warning that we are “dangerously close” to tipping points.

The paper, entitled: Global Warming: East-West Connections, co-written with Mikiko Sato, is important for both its predictions and its validation of the current climate conditions vis-a-vis the climate through both history and from a global perspective.

Some analysis below the jump…

The report states that we could be looking at a short-term to long-term temperature increase between 3 and 6 degrees Celsius (~11 F) based on the Charney climate sensitivity scale.

What does this mean?

Hansen concludes that, whether it’s 3 or 6 degrees, both impact our sensitive climate and push us toward the tipping points with:  “Subsequent research [that] has not only narrowed uncertainties about climate forcings, but also suggests that global warming has brought the Earth’s climate close to dangerous tipping points.”

(emphasis added).

Here’s a link to the report (it’s a PDF):

http://www.columbia….

An excellent post about this by THE ENVIRONMENTALIST and a report on the report by Grist.

3 comments

  1. other than Rush Limbaugh and Michael Crichton, ad nauseum ilk, still doubt we’re in trouble?

  2. …could be another “great dying”, a reprise of what happened 251.4 million years ago… the main saving possibility appears to be that the eventual ecological catastrophe will wipe out just enough of the human race to make capitalism impossible, as capitalism is the primary social force making ecosystemic management impossible.

  3. there is going to be a great die off.  I am also completely convinced it will have nothing to do with the current “enviornmental scam”, ala, Al Gore.

    When my 78 year old mother tells me she has to prove she has not given any money to me, or my kids for the last seven years in order to GET INTO a nursing home, then all humans suck.

    When I can’t stomach more than 2 minutes of 300 available TV channels, then all humans suck.

    When some blowhard(Al Gore) gets to go on a worldwide campaign touting why the people who can afford to pay for their lifestyle should be able to continue to do so, while China and India remain exempt, then all humans suck.

    You guessed it, they got Ed Brown and I’m in a particularly vile mood!

Comments have been disabled.