Global Warming: "Three Times Faster than Worst Prediction"
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 06. 4.07
As reported in yesterday's edition of The Independent, a series of stunning and worrisome studies has just shown that global warming is accelerating three times more rapidly than initially feared. The rate of increase of greenhouse gas emissions has tripled since the 1990s, the Arctic ice caps are melting three times as fast, and the oceans are rising twice as fast as had been originally forecast.
The study authored by Michael Raupach of the Global Carbon Project at CSIRO and a team of international scientists concluded that carbon dioxide emissions "have been accelerating at a global scale, with their growth rate increasing from 1.1% y-1 for 1990-1999 to >3% y-1 for 2000-2004." Furthermore, they determined that the growth rate in emissions experienced its fastest and largest increase in rapidly developing economies such as China's (accounting for "80% of the world's population"), which together contributed to "73% of global emissions growth in 2004 but only 41% of global emissions and only 23% of global cumulative emissions since the mid-18th century." This indicates, however, that developed countries, while only accounting for less than a sixth of the world's population, still produce over two-thirds of total greenhouse gas emissions.
This dramatic increase is much faster than even the worst-case scenario put forth by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in last year's report and casts a bleak outlook on the group's already dire predictions of dwindling water supplies, poor harvests, melting ice and loss of biodiversity.
Another study conducted by the University of California's National Snow and Ice Data Center showed that the Arctic ice had decreased by 7.8% a decade over the past 50 years. This again was in sharp contrast to IPCC computer models, which estimated the loss in ice cover at approximately 2.5% a decade.
Via :: Global warming 'is three times faster than worst predictions', ::Global and regional drivers of accelerating CO2 emissions
See also: ::Bad News: Climate Change Faster Than Expected, ::Carbon Sink Weakened 15% Per Decade, ::The 4 Stages of Global Warming Denial, ::Two Views on the Effects of Global Warming, ::Speaking Out on Global Warming
Seems a bit of cherry picking when looking at the global emissions chart in the report. You can definitely see how they track the global economy, particularly dipping during the Asian currency crisis in 1997. It shouldn't really be a surprise since so much production is offshoring to China and of course they're going to be more carbon-intensive in their energy use than dveeloped economies -- because it's cheaper and they have abundant coal supplies. Carbon intensity will dial back pretty quickly, if it hasn't already.
Interesting report. I look forward to looking at it in more detail. Thanks for covering it.
check out this story in singapore. I think his actions will put some of us to shame
Boy, 7, gets dad to write book on global warming to sell for President's Challenge
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,132238,00.html?
little confused about china being 80% there, when india is right on its heels? meh
This is sad news. To have such a big expansion in CO2 production when we need the opposite seems like perhaps the worst timing ever?
The 80% figure was the percentage of the world living in a third world country, I would imagine....
I'm not surprised by this new information. The IPCC info is 'consensus' info that came about through the negotiations of international scientists AND politicians. Within the scientific camp you had many with information leading them to believe that the worst case scenario was not bad enough and those few remaining skeptics who thought the the best case scenario wasn't good enough. In the end the best and worst case scenarios were a compromise solution. And the politicians were in the same situation, with certain countries pushing for strong statements and other pushing for milder statements. A compromised was reached. And then there is the fact that much of the information used to come up with the scenarios were already years old. And that as time passes there are more an more studies done with better funding and equipment. It should have been obvious to everyone that there was a high likelyhood that the worst case scenario would prove optimistic. And no one should be surprised when the inevitable people start claiming that these are isolated studies and that their conclusions should not be fixated on (since they have not been negotiated with the skeptics and politicians).