Vi husker ennå den jublende meldinga fra Dagsrevyen midt i høstens
flomkatastrofe: "Klimaforandringene skaper GLEDE!!" De hadde da klart å
finne noen modne november-jordbær i Tromsø.
Klimaendringenes faktiske virkninger er ett ganske annet og langt mer
alvorlig kapittel, hva følgende meldinger fra BBC understreker. Ingen
forventer vel noengang at dette vil kunne gå opp for folk som blir ansatt i
Dagsrevyen osv. og hvis hovedoppgave er propaganda for den globalt herskende
klassens interesser i oljeindustri, bilindustri, veibygging, flytrafikk osv.
Økende global sult blir en parantes i deres ørneperspektiv.
Karsten Johansen
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1174000/1174272.stm
Monday, 19 February, 2001, 10:59 GMT Climate 'will lead to hungry century'
The IPCC expects that deserts like the Sahara will spread further By
environment correspondent Alex Kirby
Scientists say rising global temperatures will condemn millions to hunger
this century.
In a United Nations report, they say agricultural production will decline in
Asia and Africa, while Australia and New Zealand will become short of water.
Europe will face a higher flooding risk, and the eastern seaboard of the US
may expect more storm surges and coastal erosion.
And the harder climate change bites, the likelier it is that profound and
possibly irreversible changes will occur.
The scientists are members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), a UN body bringing together many of the world's leading
climatologists.
Last month the IPCC published a report on the science of climate change,
saying the world was warming faster than previously predicted, and there was
increasingly strong evidence for humanity's influence on the climate.
Snapshot
It said world temperatures this century could rise by between 1.4 and 5.8
degrees Celsius. Sea levels could also rise by tens of centimetres,
threatening millions of people in low-lying countries.
This report is on the impacts of climate change, the Earth's vulnerability
to them, and the prospects for adaptation.
The IPCC was launched in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organisation and
the UN Environment Programme (Unep).
This is its strongest and most detailed warning so far of the impact of
global warming.
The director of Unep, Dr Klaus Toepfer, said of the latest report: "The
scientists have shown us a compelling snapshot of what the Earth - which
already faces so many other social and environmental pressures - will
probably look like later in the 21st century.
"We must start helping vulnerable species and ecosystems to adapt to new
climate conditions."
Signs
The executive secretary of the UN climate change convention, Michael Zammit
Cutajar, said: "The report has powerful implications for how we deal with
poverty and sustainable development over the coming decades."
The report says many of the physical changes that scientists expect are
visible today:
the extent of Arctic sea ice has shrunk by 10-15%, while Antarctic sea ice
retreated south by 2.8 degrees latitude from the mid-1950s to the early
1970s Alaska's boreal forests are expanding northwards at about 100 km (62
miles) for every one degree Celsius rise ice cover on lakes and rivers in
the mid to high northern latitudes now lasts for about two weeks less than
it did in 1850 in Europe, some Alpine plants are migrating upwards by from
one to four metres every decade, and between 1959 and 1993 the growing
season in gardens lengthened by nearly 11 days in the northern hemisphere,
migratory birds are arriving earlier and staying later.
The IPCC says there will be damage across the world - less rain, spreading
deserts, risks to food supplies, more storms and floods, and an increase in
infectious diseases like malaria and dengue fever.
It says small island states will be among the countries most seriously
affected, and developing countries everywhere will have difficulty in
adapting.
There will be some beneficial effects: an increased global timber supply,
bigger crop yields in some countries, more water in some areas like south
east Asia, and fewer deaths from cold in the winter.
Positive feedbacks
But the IPCC warns that "projected climate changes during the 21st century
have the potential to lead to future large-scale and possibly irreversible
changes".
These include slowing of the system that transports warm water to the north
Atlantic, large ice losses in Greenland and the West Antarctic, and the
release of carbon and methane as the Earth heats up.
The likelihood of these changes is "probably very low", the report says.
"However, their likelihood is expected to increase with the rate, magnitude
and duration of climate change."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1126000/1126669.stm
Monday, 22 January, 2001, 14:09 GMT Climate change outstrips forecasts
The role of clouds is still puzzling climate scientists By environment
correspondent Alex Kirby
The world's leading climatologists say global warming is happening faster
than previously predicted.
They say world temperatures this century could rise by between 1.4 and 5.8
degrees Celsius.
Sea levels could also rise by tens of centimetres, threatening millions of
people living in low-lying countries.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has been meeting
in Shanghai, China, says an increasing body of observations gives a
collective picture of a warming world. And it says the evidence is stronger
than before for a human influence on the climate.
The head of the United Nations Environment Programme, Dr Klaus Toepfer,
said: "The scientific consensus presented in this comprehensive report about
human-induced climate change should sound alarm bells in every national
capital and in every local community."
Dr Robert Watson, who heads the panel of scientists advising the United
Nations, said there could be massive implications in terms of water
shortages, drought, damage to agriculture and the increased spread of
disease, with developing countries worst hit.
Hottest decade
He said: "There's no doubt the Earth's climate is changing. The decade of
the 1990s was the hottest decade of the last century and the warming in this
century is warmer than anything in the last 1,000 years in the Northern
Hemisphere.
"We see changes in climate, we believe we humans are involved and we're
projecting future climate changes much more significant over the next 100
years than the last 100 years."
In this third assessment report of its Working Group One on the science of
climate change, the IPCC updates its 1995 Second Assessment Report (Sar). It
says its confidence in the ability of models to project future climates has
increased, with the greatest uncertainty still arising from the effects on
climate of clouds.
The report notes: "The observed changes in climate over time have been
documented extensively by a variety of techniques. Many of these trends are
now established with high confidence; others are far less certain."
It gives details of several trends, for example:
the global-average surface air temperature has increased since the mid-19th
century in the last four decades, temperatures have risen in the lowest few
kilometres of the atmosphere snow cover and ice extent have decreased global
average sea level has risen, and ocean heat content has increased some
important aspects of the global climate appear unchanged. No significant
trends of Antarctic sea-ice extent are apparent over the last 30 years, and
there are no clear long-term trends discernible in the intensity and
frequency of tropical storms.
Under a variety of scenarios it has prepared, the IPCC says temperature and
sea level are projected to rise.
The range for globally-averaged surface air temperature increase by 2100
ranges from about 1.4 degrees Celsius to 5.8 degrees, an increase the report
notes that "would be without precedent during the last 10,000 years". The
projected sea level rise by 2100 is between 0.09 and 0.88 metres.
But the report does say that there are still many gaps in information and
understanding. One priority, it says, is to "arrest the decline of
observational networks in many parts of the world".
The report says that emissions of greenhouse gases continue to warm the
Earth's surface, and that emissions of some types of aerosols help to cool
it. It is clear that both are caused by human activities, although the
report notes that natural factors, such as changes in solar output or
volcanic eruptions, can also have an effect.
Carbon build-up
It estimates the warming caused by changes in solar energy since 1950 at
about one-fifth of that attributable to carbon dioxide (CO2), and concludes
that "natural agents have contributed small amounts" to warming over the
last century.
The report quantifies the build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere. The
concentration now is one-third more than in 1750, it says.
"The present CO2 concentration has not been exceeded during the past 420,000
years and likely not during the past 20 million years. The rate of increase
is unprecedented during at least the past 20,000 years.
"Over two-thirds of the increase in atmospheric CO2 during the past 20 years
is due to fossil fuel burning. The rest is due to land-use change,
especially deforestation, and, to a lesser extent, cement production."
Methane concentrations have increased by a factor of 2.5 since 1750, and
those of nitrous oxide by 16%.
The Sar concluded in 1995: "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible
human influence on global climate."
This report says there is now stronger evidence for a human influence on
global climate. It concludes: "It is likely that increasing concentrations
of anthropogenic greenhouse gases have contributed substantially to the
observed warming over the last 50 years."
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Feb 19 2001 - 18:35:50 MET