AGU FM11 - Paleoclimate record points toward potential rapid climate changes

Press Conference from 2011 AGU Fall Meeting - Tue. 11 a.m. PST

Even if we are able to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, Earth could likely see drastic and rapid climate change this century, new research by NASA's Jim Hansen suggests. Paleoclimate data paints a different picture than models about the sensitivity of the climate system. Detailed analysis of the Earth's paleoclimate history of recent interglacial periods reveals we are less than a degree Celsius away from equaling a time when sea level was several meters higher than it is today.

Participants:
James Hansen
Director, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, New York, USA;
Ken Caldeira
Senior Scientist, Department of Global Ecology Carnegie Institute of Washington, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA;
Eelco Rohling
Professor of Ocean and Climate Change, Southampton University, Southampton, United Kingdom.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• AGU

[LukeScientiae]

@Mikeishere1st "Climate change" was a term scientists have been using for many decades. The Earth is warming (all data sets show this: NASA, NOAA, HadCRU, others...). Recent studies show the temperature has NOT ceased to rise (see Foster & Rahmstorf "Global temperature evolution 1979–2010" Environ. Res. Lett. 2011 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/6/4/0440­22). Confirmation that CO2 drives temp comes from numerous energy balance measurements. Google "It's not us skeptical science".

[happipat1]

@rjnagle If you go to James Hansen's Columbia website you will find the slides used in his talk in his papers that he puts up there for all to see.

You could also look up TVO's "Big Ideas" for an extended version of his talk.

[Mikeishere1st]

They're all LIARS using the term 'climate change'. The theory is and always was human caused global WARMING. Aerosols CANNOT be the cause of the 12 year hiatus of warming because little of the aerosols from China are short lived and little makes it to the southern hemisphere which is cooling while the northern hemisphere continues to warm slightly.

They do NOT even have positive physical confirmation that CO2 drives temperature up.

[carbonvirgin1]

Maybe,,, Potentially,,,Perhaps,,,, All language that underminses the message. It is true I may get runover if i walk against the traffic on the freeway every day....there is the potential to kill myself... Normal people misinterpret the language of scientists to mean a slim risk....In business, at home or in politics one would not use such language in such circumstances.

[rjnagle]

Thanks for providing this. Where can i find the slides to this talk?

[DCoffey2388]

I think an important part of this analysis deals with the notion of a temperature equilibrium status given a certain amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. But, what is less well communicated is that an equilibrium status may be reached via radical departures upward in temperature with a relaxation back to equilibrium, not just a slow or asymptotic approach from below. The actual "sensitivity" is the 3 Watts per square meter - the increased energy retention. Everything else is mere subtraction.

[nellre]

Yeah, it's pretty much too late.