Klimaatverandering: 'Hell and High Water'

An introduction to global warming impacts
Door Joe Romm, Climate Progress, 22 maart 2009

In this post, I will examine the key impacts we face by 2100 if we stay anywhere near our current emissions path. I will focus primarily on:

• Staggeringly high temperature rise, especially over land — some 10°F [5,6 °C] over much of the United States.
  
• Sea level rise of 3 to 7 feet [1 to 2 m], rising some 6 to 12 inches [15 to 30 cm] (or more) each decade thereafter.
  
• Dust Bowls over the U.S. SW and many other heavily populated regions around the globe.
  
• Massive species loss on land and sea — 50% or more of all life.
• More severe hurricanes — especially in the Gulf.
• Unexpected impacts — the fearsome “unknown unknowns”.

Equally tragic, as a 2009 NOAA-led study found, these impacts be 'largely irreversible for 1000 years'.

The single biggest failure of messaging by climate scientists (until very recently) has been the failure to explain to the public, opinion makers, and the media that business-as-usual warming results in impacts that are beyond catastrophic. For these impacts, terms like 'global warming' and 'climate change' are essentially euphemisms. That is why I prefer the term 'Hell and High Water'.

Lees het hele artikel op Climate Progress

Zie ook m'n blognotities:
De volledige oplossing voor klimaatverandering
'Risks of Massive Climate Changes' (18 maart 2009)