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The global heat is on

ALOK JHA - Nov 20 2009 06:00

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Scientists urge the world's leaders to get serious about cutting carbon dioxide emissions during the upcoming climate summit, reports Alok Jha

The Earth's natural ability to absorb carbon dioxide is declining and global temperatures are on course to rise by 6°C by the end of the century, according to a study.

Scientists said that carbon dioxide emissions have risen by 29% in the past decade alone and called for urgent action by leaders at the United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen to agree on drastic emissions cuts in order to mitigate dangerous climate change.

By studying 50 years of data on carbon emissions from human and natural sources, such as volcanoes, a team of international researchers was able to estimate how much carbon dioxide is being absorbed naturally by forests, oceans and soil.

They concluded, in the journal Nature Geoscience, that those natural sinks are becoming less efficient, absorbing 55% of the carbon now, compared with 60% half a century ago.

The drop in the amount absorbed is equivalent to 405-million tonnes of carbon, or 60 times the annual output of a large coal-fired power station.

The carbon dioxide absorbed by a natural carbon sink can be adversely affected by annual variations in weather and rising concentrations of the gas in the atmosphere.

Professor Corinne Le Quéré of the University of East Anglia, who led the study at the British Antarctic Survey, suggested that rapidly rising human emissions of carbon dioxide might have initiated a feedback mechanism in the climate system, whereby natural sinks become even more inefficient as the amount of the greenhouse gas increases.

The research gives greater urgency to the diplomatic manoeuvring ahead of the Copenhagen summit. Earlier this week, United States President Barack Obama acknowledged that time had run out to secure a legally binding climate deal next month and said he would support plans to delay a formal pact until next year at the earliest.

CONTINUES BELOW

The study is the most comprehensive analysis to date of how economic changes and shifts in the way people have used the land in the past five decades have affected the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

"The global trends we are on with carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels suggest that we're heading towards 6°C of global warming," said Le Quéré.

"This is very different to the trend we need to be on to limit global climate change to 2°C [the level required to avoid dangerous climate change]." That would require carbon dioxide emissions to peak between 2015 and 2020 and that the global per capita emissions be decreased to one tonne of carbon dioxide by 2050. The average US citizen emits 19,9 tonnes a year.

Le Quéré added: "Based on our knowledge of recent trends in carbon dioxide emissions and the time it takes to change energy infrastructure around the world, and the response of the sinks to climate change and variability, the Copenhagen conference is our last chance to stabilise the climate at 2°C above pre-industrial levels in a smooth and organised way.

"If the agreement is too weak or if the commitments are not respected, we will be on a path to 5°C or 6°C."

Le Quéré's work, part of the Global Carbon Project, showed that carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels increased at an average of 3,4% a year between 2000 and 2008 compared with 1% a year in the 1990s. Despite the global economic downturn, emissions still increased by 2% in 2008. Most of the recent increase has come from China and India, though a quarter of their emissions are a result of trade with the West.

Based on projected changes in GDP, the scientists said emissions for 2009 were expected to fall to 2007 levels, before increasing again in 2010.

But Le Quéré's conclusion on the decline of the world's carbon sinks is not universally accepted. Dr Wolfgang Knorr, of the University of Bristol, England, recently published a study in Geophysical Research Letters, using similar data to Le Quéré, in which he argued that the natural carbon sinks had not noticeably changed. "Our apparently conflicting results demonstrate what doing cutting-edge science is really like and just how difficult it is to accurately quantify such data," he said.

But the scientists agreed that an improved understanding of land and ocean carbon sinks was crucial because it had implications for targets set by governments at climate negotiations. -- © Guardian News & Media 2009

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Comments

THE LIES OF GLOBAL WARMING SCIENTISTS EXPOSED.

They will lie, they will squirm and they will claim "memory loss" but as most reasonable people suspected all along these deceitful "scientists" have been manipulating data for their own agenda.
Read this latest news report

"One of the world’s leading climate change research centres has been accused of manipulating data on global warming after thousands of private emails and documents were leaked.

Hackers targeted the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and published the files, including some personal messages, on the internet.

Among the most damaging is one which appears to suggest using a ‘trick’ to massage years of temperature data to ‘hide the decline’.
University of East Anglia¿s Climatic Research Unit

Hackers targeted the University of East Anglia¿s Climatic Research Unit, pictured, and published sensitive emails on the internet

The CRU, which plays a leading role in compiling UN reports and tracks long-term changes in temperature, has repeatedly refused to provide detailed information about the data underlying the temperature records.
Some of the leaked messages discuss ways of manipulating data that fails to comply with the establishment view that climate change is real and is being driven by man.

The email suggesting ‘hiding the decline’ is from Phil Jones, the unit’s director.

He denied trying to mislead, telling the TGIF digital newspaper he had no idea what he meant by the phrase." Ends....

What a complete con.
The man has been caught CHEATING and should be kicked out of his pseudo science laboratory and forced to pay back all the grant money!!

Dennis Hoines on November 21, 2009, 11:10 am

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/

miguel a on November 21, 2009, 5:55 pm

This article is ridiculous and contains no real science, just projections based on discredited and manipulated "models".

The evidence pouring into the real world about these "warmists" and CO2 propagandists is enormous and really makes Copenhagen irrelevant now.

The M&G hasn't yet carried the "email" story because of what? Bias?

This hoax needs to be stopped now. I live in Harare and there has been absolutely no change in the climate here over the last 40 years that I have lived here.

Time for the truth to be told instead of these perversions of science and reports from far away places about CO2 being the enemy. CO2 brings life and these attempts to trash the democratic market based lives of many people is just left wing nonsense dressed up as science.

Come on M&G carry the real story. These "climate" guys have been lying to us.

thethinkingman .. on November 23, 2009, 9:45 am

Dennis, good post, check out "Wake Up Call" a NWO documentary or is it "Zeitgeist", an interesting spin on the Global Warming topic and its supposed real agenda.

Dylan Goodwin on November 23, 2009, 12:59 pm

thethinkman wrote: I live in Harare and there has been absolutely no change in the climate here over the last 40 years that I have lived here.

Lucky chap!! Harare has the very best climate in the world - and I mean ANYWHERE!!!
Lived there for many years - hope things come right soon!
It is remarkable that so few mainstream media have picked up on the story - the BBC carried the story but only from the point of view of reporting the UEA being hacked into.
I do believe that there has been a call for an enquiry in the UK - but what I would really like to see are some prosecutions.
I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiments.
It is important for all concerned citizens who are not fooled by the Co2 theory to make our voices heard - loudly and often - hopefully in the media.

Dennis Hoines on November 23, 2009, 1:58 pm

I would like to know why scientists would bother trying to scare us when there are plenty of other things they could be running around proving or disproving. I see they have started the 'God' machine up again - Forgotten what they are trying to prove but what the hey - if we go spinning off our orbit - it wont really matter. In school, many years ago, I was taught that our sun was very 'old' and was dying - Hmmmm! Tell that to a skin cancer patient or to those who find their once fertile land has become a desert. What scares me is what these scientists do know and are not telling - imagine the mass panic. Just have to wait and see?

sue topham on November 25, 2009, 2:25 pm

The Global Warming fiasco.

Water vapour in the atmosphere constitutes around 95% of the earth’s greenhouse effect. Co2 is responsible for less than 0.5%. Draw your own conclusions.

Co2 emissions will do nothing to stop these temperature fluctuations. Between 900 and 1400 AD Greenland was occupied by the Nordics and they had pastures with cattle and sheep. ie it was much warmer then than it is now. In the 1500's the temperatures dropped and England experienced a mini ice age with annual ice-skating on the Thames (many engravings from that era depict this).

However - it is still a very good idea to stop pumping noxious gases into our atmosphere and Co2 is not the main culprit here. Far worse is Sulphur-dioxide which causes acid rain, partially burned petroleum exhaust fumes, methane, excess dust particles etc. It is our health that is threatened not the effect of climate change. Think about it, if it gets a little warmer we can begin farming in Greenland, N. Canada and Siberia again until it cools down once more and then we shift back to older locations.

Explain to me how the Piri Reis maps of Antarctica, drawn up before the history books tell us this continent was first discovered, depicted the actual land shoreline when there was supposed to be ice covering the land and obscuring the shore line. Modern seismic sounding has shown the Piri Reis maps to be very accurate. The only explanation is that there was no ice on the shoreline at that time meaning that Antarctica must have been very much warmer at then.

Seems to me that our average earth temperature has been fluctuating in cycles since the earth was first formed.

The new film release "2012", though fictional, indicates the effect of a giant solar flare on the sun for the final heating up catastrophe of the world. Wonder why they didn't tow the popular lie of today that it was Co2 emmissions!!

Long live the earth.

Bryan Lever on December 11, 2009, 7:10 pm

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