Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

The atmosphere at 4-degrees above the present

By Andrew Glikson - posted Tuesday, 4 May 2010


Much like a mountain climber suffering from altitude sickness, the world needs to urgently come down from its current CO2 level of 389 ppm, to at least 350 ppm but likely to 320 ppm, before it is too late. Only the deepest cuts in emission accompanied with emergency draw-down of atmospheric CO2 through fast-track reforestation, biochar and chemical sequestration, have a chance of mitigating runaway climate change.

Feeble attempts by civilization to mitigate the climate are drowning in a tide of medieval conspiracy theories by man-over-nature ideologues (Hoggan, 2009; Hamilton, 2010). There is nowhere the 6.5 billion of contemporary humans can go, not even the barren planets into the exploration on which space agencies are pouring more funding than governments allocate for environmental mitigation to date. Nor would the discovery of Martian bacteria compensate for the loss of the rainforests and coral reefs.

Advertisement

Figure 1
Land (NASA/GISS) and ocean (NOAA) mean annual temperature anomalies for the period 2000-2009 relative to 1951-1980. Anomalies smoothed over 250 km. Note: (1) warming by up to 4 degrees Celsius over parts of the Arctic and west Antarctica; (2) warming of continental mid-latitude dry zones, including central Australia, by about 2 degrees C; (3) warming of large parts of ocean surfaces by up to 1.0 degrees C. Grey areas have no data.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/ 

 

Figure 2
The relations between atmospheric CO2-equivalent (including the radiative forcing of methane) and mean global temperature, according to Charney’s climate sensitivity parameter of 3 +/- 1.5 degrees C per doubling of CO2 (Hansen et al., 2007, 2008) (IPCC-2007). The red crosses represent recent CO2-temperature relations based on CO2-alkenone (resistant organic compounds contained in phytoplankton) proxy (Pagani et al., 2010). The Red circle represents estimates of climate sensitivity as a function of longer term vegetation and ice sheet changes (Lunt et al. 2010).

 


 

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. All


Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

58 posts so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

Dr Andrew Glikson is an Earth and paleoclimate scientist at the Research School of Earth Science, the School of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Planetary Science Institute, Australian National University.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Andrew Glikson

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Photo of Andrew Glikson
Article Tools
Comment 58 comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy