Prepare For 4 Degree Celsius Rise in Temperature, Top UK Government Scientist Warns

Given that I live in Maryland, I think it's time I bought that boat I've had my eye on.

Here is the thing I can't understand. This is supposed to be a tipping point into a feedback cycle. So, we cross one or two degrees of warming (recent science says one degree), and then we get into feedback loops that keep getting warmer and warmer, and cause more and more CO2 and methane to be released from soils and ocean.

So, to me, that sounds like we can't adapt to four degrees, because we will just be passing through four degrees on our way to six or ten degrees. I really don't understand how we can talk about adaptation.

And, of course, the last time the Earth was at 550 ppm of CO2, 90% of life on the planet died. So I guess we need to adapt to extinction.

I think they are just being realistic given the data.

These changes are pretty much garaunteed at this point, given our never ending expansion of Carbon production.

People are not doing nearly enough to stop polluting and i swear corporations are trying to pollute as much as they can before everyone starts calling for change. Probably to mitigate the individual cost to the corp and spread it around to the people, more.

too late then though.

this will not change my mind about reducing carbon production but i could see it easily effecting people who are on the fence now who would just slip into the 'why bother' category.

how someone could still be on the fence with this issue, i dont know. You either care or you dont.

I think that it's stupid. It misses the science. 2 degrees has to be where we stop. There are other feedback loops that come into play once we hit about 2.5 degrees. Those feedback loops provide us with run-away warming to much more than 6 degrees. That's kind of extinction for humans levels. Whether or not the plants we rely upon for ecosystem services could survive an abrupt 2 degree change is even questionable.

It's call being suicidal as a whole species. Serious, significant and quick change is absolutely needed. Yesterday.

Hey, Noah, I need your expertise to build a boat but not quite as large as the last one. I don't have pets.

Unfortunately, people will not react to anything until it is staring them in the face. So, considering that seas have not risen, drought appears to be sporadic and natural, it is not really hotter or colder (in general), etc. no one is going to make drastic changes in their lifestyle until there are drastic changes in the climate, and then it will be too late and we will need to learn how to deal with the situation we are in. Its just the way we are, and the way we will always be. And I know I am making generalizations and not everyone behaves like that, but society, every society across the planet, behaves like that.

More than likely, some people will find a way to get incredibly rich off our procrastination too.

"Given that I live in Maryland, I think it's time I bought that boat I've had my eye on." - Jack Dawkins

I hope that boat is a kayak because finding gas for a powerboat will be tough.

I saw James Lovelock in a recent lecture to the Royal Society that for people to actually act on climate change, there has to be some sort of disaster so the psychology of the 'war effort' can swing into life. That's a dark analysis but ultimately I think that's the case. Most people are obvious, as though their participation was merely optional.

There is serious social and political failure to act and the article on 4 degrees of warming reflects this reality. The problem with aiming for 2 degrees is that people are betting increases and reductions will lead to linear behaviour in the climate, whereas evidence suggests the climate has jumped from one steady state to another. It's humanity's last great experiment, which unfortunately we're all living in.

While I think global warming is a reality that affects the climate I fail to see how sea levels may rise because of it:

If 10% of an iceberg is out of the water and ice is 9% more dense than water if they melt wouldn't the volume of new water be more or less the same as the volume it used to occupy while solid??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buoyancy

I think fear only works for short term stimulation and people very easily grow tired of it and may even turn skeptic afterwards. It is fodder for denial.

We live in an age of change of behaviours comparable to the late sixties and there are always extremes in these situations.

I can't verify the temperature progression of earth's water currents but I can verify the (bad) air and water quality on my backyard and if that isn't enough to make people act what is?

climate change means to me

pollution = big f**K-up

so we need to stop pollution.

calling it carbon, and having 'carbon capturing' plans, doesn't help stopping pollution where it starts.

just look to China/India for problems with pollution, further exasperated by poverty. it's because we live in the wealther nations that we think we are exempt for global temperature/weather changes. that's stupid, stupid.