New Study: Global Temperatures to Rise 9 Degrees by 2100
A new study, which researchers have called “the most exhaustive end-to-end analysis of climate change impacts yet performed”, predicts that global warming could be twice as bad as previous estimates had suggested.
Published this month in the Journal of Climate, the MIT-based research found a 90% probability that worldwide surface temperatures will rise at least 9 degrees by 2100.
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Pulling from a variety of data sources back in 2007, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) projected temperature increases anywhere from 2 to 11 degrees by the end of the century. Now due to this new data, it looks like the higher range of that projection may be closer to the truth.
The new study was done using 400 applications of a computer model, which included looking at complicated factors such as atmospheric, oceanic and biological systems data, as well as global economic activity. A similar 2003 study had predicted a mere– but still significant– 4 degree increase in global temperatures by 2100, but those models weren’t nearly as comprehensive, and they didn’t take into consideration economic factors.
The most impactful way to lower the projections would be to significantly reduce human-produced greenhouse gas emissions, according to the researchers.
While complex factors such as human economic activity can be difficult to quantify exactly in a computer model, it’s increasingly clear that those kinds of factors have a significant impact on global climate. As this study portrays, the more comprehensive and sophisticated our computer models get, the grimmer the news.
In other words, as our models become increasingly more accurate compared to previous models, global warming reveals itself as more acute rather than less. And it becomes much more apparent just how large of an impact human-induced factors can have on climate change.
Via USAToday.com
Image Credit: lorentey at flickr under a Ceative Commons License
Bill - “It has been apparent for some time that Global Warming was accelerating beyond the predictions of all the climate models.”
Where does this come from? World temperatures have been trending downwards this century,Arctic ice cover has made a significant recovery, Antarctic ice cover is at record levels and there hasn’t been any increase in weather extreme events.
Is there any evidence at all that human produced CO2 has had any impact on temperature?
The fact that they predicted a “90% chance that temperatures will be at least 9 degrees” tells you this is complete nonsense. If thats the 90/10, what the 50/50 ? 15 degrees ? ha ha. These chumps can’t even describe a basic expectation curve.
I have to laugh at some of the comments as well. “The models are all getting worse and worse” … oh no - we are all doomed. Its funny how the models seem to be getting worse and worse, but the actual data seems to be showing us getting cooler and cooler. Work that one out chumps !
And given that Richard Lindzen is Professor of Meterology at MIT and is a complete AGW critic makes it very doubtful that MIT was involved at all. Here is a quote from him :
“Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree,and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age”
Yes ….. that is a quote from the Chair Professor of Meterology at MIT - wake up and smell the roses.
The MIT article says different from the USA Today article you’ve linked to.
“The new projections, published this month in the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate, indicate a median probability of surface warming of 5.2 degrees Celsius by 2100, with a 90% probability range of 3.5 to 7.4 degrees. This can be compared to a median projected increase in the 2003 study of just 2.4 degrees”
Climate models don’t even come close to the real thing and are absolutely incapable of producing believable predictions. As for all computer programs - junk in, junk out.
For some current data on what’s really happening to climate, read:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/25/global-warming-of-7c-could-kill-billions-this-century/#more-8018
Who are these anonymous MIT researches whose work you claim to have seen? If their results come from modeling you can forget about them. All these climate models are built to predict warming from carbon dioxide which is not the cause of warming. Satellite data show that there was no warming of any kind until the super El Nino of 1998 showed up. But the grand-daddy of all models, the GISS climate model of Hansen’s in 1988, predicted a steadily rising temperature until 2020 simply by extrapolating a warming trend that was barely ten years old then. That warming has been dubbed the “late twentieth century warming” but it sure does not show up in satellite temperature measurements. Putting that phony warming into a computer will give you phony output too - GIGO is the word. When you look at world temperatures you will find that there actually was warming between 1998 when the El Nino started to 2007 and when a La Nina cooling put an end to the twenty-first century high. This warming was interpolated between regular ENSO oscillations thanks to an Indian Ocean overflow that created the El Nino. This is something their models are totally incapable of handling. They just show a monotonic increase of temperature with time and try to incorporate the 1998 El Nino and the twenty-first century high to cover up their deficiencies. But their luck has run out and they can’t fake it any longer. Climate has returned to normal with the La Nina cooling we are in and will be governed by ENSO oscillations from now on. Which means that a giant gap has opened up between those model predictions and reality which will be increasingly obvious when they realize that their “scenarios,” “projections” or whatever they choose to call their predictions just to avoid using the word “prediction” are now totally out of touch with reality.
I have very little confidence in these computer models. Considering that the earth has not been getting warmer since 1998, they need to come out with ever more hysterical predictions to scare us into the global warming frenzy. In the 1990s they said that it would continue to get hotter, but with the new millennium it has plateaued. The past predictions have not held up, so why should the new ones? It is very easy to talk about things that might happen in the future. Here in Spain it has been an unusually cold winter.
Do not fear Global Warming! The great hulking American Neanderthal and his “American Dream” way of life, primary causes of all of these problems, directly or indirectly, have been conquered by the Asians, and vanquished from the face of this earth in an economic war, he doesn’t understand or know how to fight! In a short decade, including the next naturally cyclic downturn in his primitive capitalistic, corporatist driven economy, the greater depression and a dollar not worth the paper it is printed on will face the Asian markets, Beijing, Shanghai and Hang Seng, booming with a strong incorruptible “Yuan”, bidding on international markets for oil, the Great hulking American Neanderthals life blood, against worthless paper, U.S. dollars with no backing, of ill repute! The currency for international trade is becoming the Yuan as we speak, replacing the Yankee sawbuck, the much manipulated, backing-less “fiat” paper, “Federal reserved”, money of the great hulking American Neanderthal! His cities, monuments to corporative and capitalistic rape, look like this - SEE: http://uprooted.jessicareeder.com/2009/09/detroit-and-the-100-dollar-house/comment-page-1/#comment-3003 - when the corporatists are done raping, pillaging the country. The Great hulking American Neanderthal is broke today! his Loans about to be called in! By China! His great WWII style battle-field ready Military Forces unmannable but by conscription, and totally dependent on OPEC for it’s fuel, a mockery on the international economics battle field! He has nuclear power to kill the whole world 12 times over, but none to heat his homes! Power his industries! Besides, the corporatists Capitalists have already monopolized and cartelled the world’s nuclear fuel and await for their new fuel games to begin! His food supply totally dependent on fuel from other countries, his corn, GMO’ed his meat laced with hormones and antibiotics, causing genetic changes in his daughters, ready to whelp at 10 years of age! His sons born with ever smaller penises due to corporates BPA plastics, estrogen in his meats giving them early, feminine, breasts! The medical care he gets a shame to the rest of the civilized world, tied to impossible “eligibilities” by corporatists to extract more from the system, his taxing systems so corrupt as to create many Billionaires, an anomaly in this whole, other-wise normal world! The great Hulking American Neanderthal, about to follow the U.S.S.R. into the abyss, and as it closes over his head, we will hear him sing praises of his own glory and they will echo off the walls of Hell as he disappears from the face of the earth, no longer to consume some 80% of our resources! We the remnants of this once great beast, will finally be free of Nuclear threats, Military threats, and Global warming! Massive pollution problems, and hunger, there will be a surplus in the lands for the smaller statured vegans of the world, and great joy among them! This is the Fourth Turning for America, and the beginning of the age of Aquarius, the end of the Mayan calendar, and biblical in proportion!The end of the great Hulking American Neanderthal, evolved in less than 200 years, bred to extract the riches of the New World, and extinct in a short decade by his own hand, Gone!