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World has 10-year window to act on climate: expert

By Mary Milliken Wed Sep 13, 9:03 PM ET

SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) - A leading U.S. climate researcher said on Wednesday the world has a 10-year window of opportunity to take decisive action on global warming and avert a weather catastrophe.
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NASA scientist James Hansen, widely considered the doyen of American climate researchers, said governments must adopt an alternative scenario to keep carbon dioxide emission growth in check and limit the increase in global temperatures to 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit).

"I think we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change ... no longer than a decade, at the most," Hansen said at the Climate Change Research Conference in California's state capital.

If the world continues with a "business as usual" scenario, Hansen said temperatures will rise by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 7.2 degrees F) and "we will be producing a different planet."

On that warmer planet, ice sheets would melt quickly, causing a rise in sea levels that would put most of Manhattan under water. The world would see more prolonged droughts and heat waves, powerful hurricanes in new areas and the likely extinction of 50 percent of species.

Hansen, who heads NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has made waves before by saying that
President George W. Bush's administration tried to silence him and heavily edited his and other scientists' findings on a warmer world.

He reiterated that the United States "has passed up the opportunity" to influence the world on global warming.

The United States is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide. But Bush pulled the country out of the 160-nation Kyoto Protocol in 2001, arguing that the treaty's mandatory curbs on emissions would harm the economy.

Hansen praised California for taking the "courageous" step of passing legislation on global warming last month that will make it the first U.S. state to place caps on greenhouse gas emissions.

He said the alternative scenario he advocates involves promoting energy efficiency and reducing dependence on carbon burning fuels.

"We cannot burn off all the fossil fuels that are readily available without causing dramatic climate change," Hansen said. "This is not something that is a theory. We understand the carbon cycle well enough to say that."

By: YahooNews

Global warming taking earth back to dinosaur era

By Jeremy Lovell Thu Sep 7, 10:33 AM ET

NORWICH (Reuters) - Global warming over the coming century could mean a return of temperatures last seen in the age of the dinosaur and lead to the extinction of up to half of all species, a scientist said on Thursday.
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Not only will carbon dioxide levels be at the highest levels for 24 million years, but global average temperatures will be higher than for up to 10 million years, said Chris Thomas of the University of York.

Between 10 and 99 percent of species will be faced with atmospheric conditions that last existed before they evolved, and as a result from 10-50 percent of them could disappear.

"We may very well already be on the breaking edge of a wave of mass extinctions," Thomas told the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

Scientists predict average global temperatures will rise by between two and six degrees centigrade by 2100, mainly as a result of the heat-trapping carbon dioxide being pumped into the air from burning fossil fuels for transport and power.

"If the most extreme warming predicted takes place we will be going back to global temperatures not seen since the age of the dinosaur," Thomas said.

"We are starting to put these things into a historical perspective. These are conditions not seen for millions of years, so none of the species will have been subjected to them before," he added.

Thomas said scientific observations had already found that -- as predicted by the climate models -- 80 percent of species had already begun moving their traditional territorial ranges in response to the changing climatic conditions.

"That is an amazingly high correlation. It is a clear signature of climate change," he said.

Not only had the animals, birds and insects started to react, but there was evidence vegetation was also on the move.

For example, climate-triggered fungal pathogen outbreaks had already led to the extinction of more than one percent of the planet's amphibian species, Thomas said.

Not only would some species simply find no suitable space to live anymore, but there would be confrontations with invasive species being forced to move their territory. This would produce not just wipe-outs but species' mixtures never seen before.

And the changes would all happen at a faster rate than ever before in evolution.

"In geological terms 100 years is effectively instantaneous," Thomas noted.

By:YahooNews