Peter N. Spotts – Little time to avoid big thaw, scientists warn – The Christian Science Monitor – 24/03/2006 – http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0324/p01s03-sten.html “Ice on Greenland and Antarctica is already thinning faster than it’s being replaced – and faster than scientists thought it would, notes Richard Alley, a paleoclimatologist at Penn State University and member of one of the research teams. Only five years ago, he notes, climate scientists expected the ice sheets to gain mass through 2100, then begin to melt. «We’re now 100 years ahead of schedule,» he says.”
Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt – Peer Review: A Necessary but Not Sufficient Condition – Real Climate 20/01/2005 – http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/peer-review-a-necessary-but-not-sufficient-condition/ “There have been several recent cases of putatively peer-reviewed studies in the scientific literature that produced unjustified or invalid conclusions. Curiously, many of these publications have been accompanied by heavy publicity campaigns, often declaring that this one paper completely refutes the scientific consensus.”
Mark Siddall, Thomas F. Stocker and Peter U. Clark (2010) – Constraints on future sea-level rise from past sea-level change – Nature Geoscience doi: 10.1038/ngeo587 – Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol; Physics Institute, University of Bern; Department of Geosciences, Oregon State University – Retracted “Our model explains much of the centennial-scale variability observed over the past 22,000 years, and estimates 4–24 cm of sea-level rise during the twentieth century, in agreement with the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. In response to the minimum (1.1 °C) and maximum (6.4 °C) warming projected for AD 2100 by the IPCC models, our model predicts 7 and 82 cm of sea-level rise by the end of the twenty-first century, respectively. The range of sea-level rise is slightly larger than the estimates from the IPCC models of 18–76 cm, but is sufficiently similar to increase confidence in the projections.”
Catia M. Domingues et al (2008) – Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise – Nature 453:1090-1094 – 19/06/2008 – Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research – Peer reviewed “Climatemodels, however, do not reproduce the large decadal variability in globally averaged ocean heat content inferred from the sparse observational database (refs) even when volcanic and other variable climate forcings are included. The sum of the observed contributions has also not adequately explained the overall multi-decadal rise … On average, the decadal variability of the climate models with volcanic forcing now agrees approximately with the observations, but the modelled multi-decadal trends are smaller than observed. We add our observational estimate of upper-ocean thermal expansion to other contributions to sea-level rise and find that the sum of contributions from 1961 to 2003 is about 1.5±0.4mm yr-1, in good agreement with our updated estimate of near-global mean sea-level rise (using techniques established in earlier studies – refs) of 1.6±0.2 mm yr-1”
Anne M. Stark – Ocean temperatures and sea level increases 50 percent higher than previously estimated – Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 08/06/2007 – https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/news/news_releases/2008/NR-08-06-07.html “The ocean warming and thermal expansion rates are more than 50 percent larger than previous estimates for the upper 300 meters of oceans … The oceans store more than 90 percent of the heat in the Earth’s climate system and act as a temporary buffer against the effects of climate change. The ocean warming and thermal expansion rates are 50 percent larger than previous estimates for the upper 700 meters of oceans, and greater than that for the upper 300 meters.”
Pfeffer et al. (2008) – Kinematic Constraints on Glacier Contributions to 21st-Century Sea-Level Rise – Science 321:1340:1343 DOI: 10.1126/science.1159099– 05/09/2008 – 1Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder – 3 authors “On the basis of calculations presented here, we suggest that an improved estimate of the range of SLR to 2100 including increased ice dynamics lies between 0.8 and 2.0 m … these values give a context and starting point for refinements in SLR forecasts on the basis of clearly defined assumptions and offer a more plausible range of estimates than those neglecting the dominant ice dynamics term.”
Stefan Rahmstorf and Martin Vermeer – Ups and downs of sea level projections – Real Climate 31/08/2009 – http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/08/ups-and-downs-of-sea-level-projections/ – Peer reviewed “It’s this “linearity in temperature” assumption that the Siddall et al. approach rejects. Linearity over time is quite a different matter. There are many reasons why this cannot hold indefinitely, even though it seems to work well for the past 120 years at least … On the other hand, none of the new evidence points in the direction of smaller rates of sea level rise in the future, and probably nudge us closer to the upper end of the IPCC predictions. Those who have already been ignoring or naysaying those predictions now have even less of a leg to stand on.”
Mark Siddall, Thomas F. Stocker and Peter U. Clark (2010) – Retraction: Constraints on future sea-level rise from past sea-level change – Nature Geoscience doi: 10.1038/ngeo780 – Published online 21/02/2010 – http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo780.html – Peer reviewed “Thus we no longer have confidence in our projections for the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and for this reason the authors retract the results pertaining to sea-level rise after 1900. Both our simulations of the last deglaciation, and the result that the equilibrium response of sea-level change to temperature is non-linear over the last deglaciation, are robust to the length of the time step used, and are still valid. We thank S[tefan] Rahmstorf and M[artin] Vermeer for bringing these issues to our attention.”
Martin Vermeer and Stefan Rahmstorf (2009) – Global sea level linked to global temperature – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS 106:21527-21532 doi: 10.1073/pnas.0907765106 – 22/12/2009 – Department of Surveying, Helsinki University of Technology; Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research – Peer reviewed “We propose a simple relationship linking global sea-level variations on time scales of decades to centuries to global mean temperature. This relationship is tested on synthetic data from a global climate model for the past millennium and the next century. When applied to observed data of sea level and temperature for 1880–2000, and taking into account known anthropogenic hydrologic contributions to sea level, the correlation is >0.99, explaining 98% of the variance. For future global temperature scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report, the relationship projects a sea-level rise ranging from 75 to 190 cm for the period 1990–2100 … To limit global sea-level rise to a maximum of 1 m in the long run (i.e., beyond 2100), as proposed recently as a policy goal (ref), deep emissions reductions will be required. Likely they would have to be deeper than those needed to limit global warming to 2 °C, the policy goal now supported by many countries. Our analysis further suggests that emissions reductions need to come early in this century to be effective.”
Bindoff, N.L., J. Willebrand, V. Artale, A, Cazenave, J. Gregory, S. Gulev, K. Hanawa, C. Le Quéré, S. Levitus, Y. Nojiri, C.K. Shum, L.D. Talley and A. Unnikrishnan (2007) – Observations: Oceanic Climate Change and Sea Level. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – Cambridge University Press – http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-projections-of.html – Peer reviewed “Table 5.3. Estimates of the various contributions to the budget of global mean sea level change for 1961 to 2003 and 1993 to 2003 compared with the observed rate of rise. Ice sheet mass loss of 100 Gt yr–1 is equivalent to 0.28 mm yr–1 of sea level rise. A GIA correction has been applied to observations from tide gauges and altimetry. For the sum, the error has been calculated as the square root of the sum of squared errors of the contributions. The thermosteric sea level changes are for the 0 to 3,000 m layer of the ocean.”
David Adam – Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels – The Guardian 21/02/2010 – http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/21/sea-level-geoscience-retract-siddall “Study claimed in 2009 that sea levels would rise by up to 82cm by the end of century – but the report’s author now says true estimate is still unknown … At the time, Mark Siddall, from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Bristol, said the study «strengthens the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results». The IPCC said that sea level would probably rise by 18cm-59cm by 2100, though stressed this was based on incomplete information about ice sheet melting and that the true rise could be higher.”
Nathaniel L. Bindoff and Jürgen Willebrand, lead authors (2007) – Observations: Oceanic Climate Change and Sea Level – In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – Cambridge University Press – Peer reviewed “Table 5.3: Estimates of the various contributions to the budget of global mean sea level change for 1961 to 2003 and 1993 to 2003 compared with the observed rate of rise. Ice sheet mass loss of 100 Gt yr–1 is equivalent to 0.28 mm yr–1 of sea level rise. A GIA correction has been applied to observations from tide gauges and altimetry. For the sum, the error has been calculated as the square root of the sum of squared errors of the contributions. The thermosteric sea level changes are for the 0 to 3,000 m layer of the ocean.”
Anny Cazenave (2006) – How Fast Are The Ice Sheets Melting? – Science 314:1250-1252 DOI: 10.1126/science.1133325 – 24/11/2006 – Observatoire Midi-Pyrenées, Toulouse – Peer reviewed “The greatest uncertainty in sea-level projections is the future behavior of the ice sheets. In recent years, the velocities of outlet glaciers in coastal regions of Greenland and Antarctica have accelerated, showing that a large fraction of ice-mass loss occurs through dynamical processes rather than surface melting (refs). The dynamical response of the ice sheets to present-day climate forcing may thus play a much larger role than previously assumed. Future dynamical instabilities of the ice sheets is of major concern, given their potential impact on sea level (ref), yet comprehensive modeling of such dynamical effects is in its infancy.”
Robin Bell – Unquite Ice Speaks Volumes on Global Warming – Scientific American – February 2008 – http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-unquiet-ice “Predicting future sea-level change from the current climate models greatly underestimates the future contribution of the polar ice sheets to sea-level rise. But updating the models by quantifying the ice movements still demands intensive research efforts. Simply, if glaciologists do not know what goes on at the bottom of the ice sheets, no one can predict how ice sheets will change with time.”
Göran Ekström et al (2006) – Seasonality and Increasing Frequency of Greenland Glacial Earthquakes – Science 311:1756-1758 – 24/03/2006 – Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University – http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/311/5768/1756.pdf – Peer reviewed “Some glaciers and ice streams periodically lurch forward with sufficient force to generate emissions of elastic waves that are recorded on seismometers worldwide. Such glacial earthquakes on Greenland show a strong seasonality as well as a doubling of their rate of occurrence over the past 5 years. These temporal patterns suggest a link to the hydrological cycle and are indicative of a dynamic glacial response to changing climate conditions … Although the mechanics of sudden sliding motions at the glacier base are not known, the seasonal and temporal patterns reported here suggest that the glacial earthquakes may serve as a marker of ice-sheet response to external forcing.”
Climate Change 2001 – The Scientific Basis – http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/409.htm – Peer reviewed “For the 35 SRES scenarios, we project a sea level rise of 0.09 to 0.88 m for 1990 to 2100, with a central value of 0.48 m. The central value gives an average rate of 2.2 to 4.4 times the rate over the 20th century. If terrestrial storage continued at its present rates, the projections could be changed by -0.21 to +0.11 m. For an average AOGCM, the SRES scenarios give results which differ by 0.02 m or less for the first half of the 21st century. By 2100, they vary over a range amounting to about 50% of the central value. Beyond the 21st century, sea level rise will depend strongly on the emissions scenario.”
James E. Hansen (2007) – Scientific reticence and sea level rise – Environmental Research Letters, 2, 024002 doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/2/2/024002 – 24/05/2007 – NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies – Peer reviewed “IPCC reports may contain a reticence in the sense of being extremely careful about making attributions. This characteristic is appropriately recognized as an asset that makes the IPCC conclusions authoritative and widely accepted. It is probably a necessary characteristic, given that the IPCC document is produced as a consensus among most nations in the world and represents the views of thousands of scientists. Kerr (2007) describes a specific relevant example, whether the IPCC should include estimates of dynamical ice sheet loss in their projections: ‘too poorly understood, IPCC authors said’, and ‘overly cautious—(dynamical effects) could raise sea level much faster than IPCC was predicting’ some scientists responded. Kerr goes on to say ‘almost immediately, new findings have emerged to support IPCC’s conservative position’. Glaciologist Richard Alley, an IPCC lead author, said ‘Lots of people were saying we [IPCC authors] should extrapolate into the future, but we dug our heels in at the IPCC and said that we don’t know enough to give an answer’.”
John A. Church and Neil J. White (2006) – A 20th century acceleration in global sea-level rise – Geophysical Research Letters 33, L01602 doi: 10.1029/2005GL024826 – 06/01/2006 – CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Australia; Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, Australia – http://www.imedea.uib.es/goifis/OTROS/VANIMEDAT/documentos/intranet/Bibliography/Church_SeaLevelAcceleration_20century.pdf – Peer reviewed “We extend the reconstruction of global mean sea level back to 1870 and find a sea-level rise from January 1870 to December 2004 of 195 mm, a 20th century rate of sea-level rise of 1.7 ± 0.3 mm yr−1 and a significant acceleration of sea-level rise of 0.013 ± 0.006 mm yr−2. This acceleration is an important confirmation of climate change simulations which show an acceleration not previously observed. If this acceleration remained constant then the 1990 to 2100 rise would range from 280 to 340 mm, consistent with projections in the IPCC TAR.”
S. J. Holgate and P. L. Woodworth (2004) – Evidence for enhanced coastal sea level rise during the 1990s – Geophysical Research Letters 31, L07305 doi: 10.1029/2004GL019626 – 09/04/2004 – Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory – Peer reviewed “Sea level rise over the last 55 years is estimated to have been 1.7 ± 0.2 mm yr−1, based upon 177 tide gauges divided into 13 regions with near global coverage and using a Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) model to correct for land movements. We present evidence from altimeter data that the rate of sea level rise around the global coastline was significantly in excess of the global average over the period 1993–2002. We also show that the globally-averaged rate of coastal sea level rise for the decade centered on 1955 was significantly larger than any other decade during the past 55 years. In some models of sea level rise, enhanced coastal rise is a pre-cursor of global average rise. It remains to be seen whether the models are correct and whether global-average rates in the future reflect the high rates of coastal rise observed during the 1990s.”
Andrew C. Kemp et al (2009) – Timing and magnitude of recent accelerated sea-level rise (North Carolina, United States) – Geology 37:1035-1038 DOI: 10.1130/G30352A.1 – November 2009 – Sea-Level Research Laboratory, Department of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia – 8 authors – http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/37/11/1035 – Peer reviewed «The measured rate of relative sea-level rise in North Carolina during the twentieth century was 3.0–3.3 mm/a, consisting of a background rate of ~1 mm/a, plus an abrupt increase of 2.2 mm/a, which began between A.D. 1879 and 1915. This acceleration is broadly synchronous with other studies from the Atlantic coast. The magnitude of the acceleration at both sites is larger than at sites farther north along the U.S. and Canadian Atlantic coast and may be indicative of a latitudinal trend.”
Fred Pearce – Arctic meltdown is a threat to humanity (Meltdown: The Arctic Armageddon) – New Scientist 2701 – 25/03/2009 – http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20127011.500-arctic-meltdown-is-a-threat-to-humanity.html
“I am shocked, truly shocked,» says Katey Walter, an ecologist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. «I was in Siberia a few weeks ago, and I am now just back in from the field in Alaska. The permafrost is melting fast all over the Arctic, lakes are forming everywhere and methane is bubbling up out of them … Back in Tokyo United Nations University Talk 2006, in a paper in Nature, Walter warned that as the permafrost in Siberia melted, growing methane emissions could accelerate climate change. But even she was not expecting such a rapid change. ‘Lakes in Siberia are five times bigger than when I measured them in 2006. It’s unprecedented. This is a global event now, and the inertia for more permafrost melt is increasing.’»
Eric Rignot and Pannir Kanagaratnam (2006) – Changes in the Velocity Structure of the Greenland Ice Sheet – Science 311:986-990 DOI: 10.1126/science.1121381 – 17/02/2006 – Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS), University of Kansas – Peer reviewed “Using satellite radar interferometry observations of Greenland, we detected widespread glacier acceleration below 66° north between 1996 and 2000, which rapidly expanded to 70° north in 2005. Accelerated ice discharge in the west and particularly in the east doubled the ice sheet mass deficit in the last decade from 90 to 220 cubic kilometers per year. As more glaciers accelerate farther north, the contribution of Greenland to sea-level rise will continue to increase … Greenland’s mass loss therefore doubled in the last decade, well beyond error bounds. Its contribution to sea-level rise increased from 0.23 ± 0.08 mm/year in 1996 to 0.57 ± 0.1 mm/year in 2005. Two-thirds of the loss is caused by ice dynamics; the rest is due to enhanced runoff minus accumulation. Ice dynamics therefore dominates the contribution to sea-level rise from the Greenland Ice Sheet.”
S. B. Luthcke et al (2009) – Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Changes from NASA GSFC GRACE Mascon Solutions – 2009 Fall AGU, H13G-02 (693337) – 14/12/2009 – http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003600/a003663/ “The mass changes of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) are computed from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) inter-satellite range-rate observations for the period April 5, 2003, through July 25, 2009. The mass of the GrIS has been computed at 10-day intervals and 200-km spatial resolution from a regional high-resolution mascon solution (Luthcke and others, 2008 and 2006). The animation shows the change in mass referenced from April 5, 2003. The spatial variation in surface mass is shown in centimeters equivalent height of water. The time variation of the GrIS mass is shown in the x-y plot insert with units of gigatons.”
Hamish D. Pritchard et al (2009) – Extensive dynamic thinning on the margins of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets – Nature 461:971-975 doi:10.1038/nature08471 – 23/09/2009 – British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council – http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7266/full/nature08471.html – Peer reviewed “We find that dynamic thinning of glaciers now reaches all latitudes in Greenland, has intensified on key Antarctic grounding lines, has endured for decades after ice-shelf collapse, penetrates far into the interior of each ice sheet and is spreading as ice shelves thin by ocean-driven melt. In Greenland, glaciers flowing faster than 100 m yr-1 thinned at an average rate of 0.84 m yr-1, and in the Amundsen Sea embayment of Antarctica, thinning exceeded 9.0 m yr-1 for some glaciers. Our results show that the most profound changes in the ice sheets currently result from glacier dynamics at ocean margins … We infer that grounded glaciers and ice streams are responding sensitively not only to ice-shelf collapse but to shelf thinning owing to ocean-driven melting. This is an apparently widespread phenomenon that does not require climate warming sufficient to initiate ice-shelf surface melt. Dynamic thinning of Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheet ocean margins is more sensitive, pervasive, enduring and important than previously realized.”
Richard F. Katz and M. Grae Worster – Stability of ice-sheet grounding lines – Proceedings of the Royal Society A 10.1098/rspa.2009.0434 – Published online 13/01/2010 – http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/01/13/rspa.2009.0434 – Peer reviewed “Our results indicate that unstable retreat of the grounding line over retrograde beds is a robust feature of models that evolve based on force balance at the grounding line. We conclude, based on our simplified model, that unstable grounding-line recession may already be occurring at the Pine Island glacier.”
E. R. Thomas et al (2009) – Ice core evidence for significant 100-year regional warming on the Antarctic Peninsula – Geophysical Research Letters 36, L20704 doi: 10.1029/2009GL040104 – 24/10/2009 – British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK – Peer reviewed “We conclude that the exceptional 50-year warming, previously only observed in the northern Peninsula, is not just a local phenomena but part of a statistically significant 100-year regional warming trend that began around 1900. A suite of coupled climate models are employed to demonstrate that the 50 and 100 year temperature trends are outside of the expected range of variability from pre-industrial control runs, indicating that the warming is likely the result of external climate forcing.”
J. L. Chen et al (2009) – Accelerated Antarctic ice loss from satellite gravity measurements – Nature Geoscience doi:10.1038/ngeo694 – Published online: 22/11/2009 – Peer reviewed “In agreement with an independent earlier assessment4, we estimate a total loss of 190±77 Gt yr-1, with 132±26 Gt yr-1 coming from West Antarctica. However, in contrast with previous GRACE estimates, our data suggest that East Antarctica is losing mass, mostly in coastal regions, at a rate of -57±52 Gt yr-1, apparently caused by increased ice loss since the year 2006.”
Quirin Schiermeier (2010) – Sea level paper withdrawn on account of miscalculation – Climate Feedback 24/02/2010 – http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2010/02/sea_level_paper_withdrawn_on_a.html “Scientists have last week retracted a study which, based on simulations of the past 22,000 years, had projected a 21st century global sea level rise between 7 and 82 centimetres. The authors say they no longer have confidence in the projections owing to serious mistakes in their model approach … It is unclear if the resulting projections over- or underestimate future sea level rise, says Siddall. The mistakes, he says, are too profound to be dealt with in a mere correction to the initial paper. The retracted paper has been “totally independent” from studies reviewed by the IPCC for its last report, and will not affect future work by the IPCC, he says.”
Richard S. Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi (2009) – On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data – Geophysical Research Letters 36 L16705 doi: 10.1029/2009GL039628 – Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – 26/08/2009 – Peer-reviewed “Climate feedbacks are estimated from fluctuations in the outgoing radiation budget from the latest version of Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) nonscanner data. It appears, for the entire tropics, the observed outgoing radiation fluxes increase with the increase in SSTs. The observed behavior of radiation fluxes implies negative feedback processes associated with relatively low climate sensitivity. This is the opposite of the behavior of 11 atmospheric models forced by the same SSTs. Therefore, the models display much higher climate sensitivity than is inferred from ERBE … Although such a test does not distinguish the mechanisms, this is important since the inconsistency of climate feedbacks constitutes a very fundamental problem in climate prediction.”
Kevin Trenberth et al (2010) – Relationships between tropical sea surface temperature and top-of-atmosphere radiation – Geophysical Research Letters doi: 10.1029/2009GL042314 – Peer-reviewed http://www.agu.org/journals/pip/gl/2009GL042314-pip.pdf “Atmospheric model results are explored and found to be consistent with observations. From 1985 to 1999 the largest perturbation in TOA [top-of-atmosphere] radiative fluxes was from the eruption of Mount Pinatubo and clearly models which do not include that forcing will not simulate the effects. Consequently, regressions of radiation with SSTs in the tropics may have nothing to say about climate sensitivity … As shown here, the approach taken by LC09 is flawed, and its results are seriously in error. The LC09 choice of dates has distorted their results and underscores the defective nature of their analysis.”
Jesús Rosino – Progresos sobre el nivel del mar: Zorita vs. Diagnóstico de Copenhague – Cambio Climático: Difundiendo la ciencia del calentamiento global 11/01/2010 – http://aziroet.com/cambioclimatico/2010/01/11/progresos-sobre-el-nivel-del-mar-zorita-vs-diagnostico-de-copenhague/ “En vista de las carencias de los modelos físicos, se ha desarrollado una aproximación semi-empírica consistente en hallar la relación estadística entre la variación de temperatura y del nivel del mar a lo largo del siglo XX (ref). Los resultados de este nuevo enfoque indican que la subida del nivel del mar probablemente sea de en torno al doble4 [Rahmstorf 2007: 0,5 a 1,4 m.] o incluso al triple (refs) [Grinsted, Moore y Jevrejeva 2009: 0,9 a 1,3 m. para el escenario A1B y 1,1 a 1,6 m. para el escenario más pesimista (A1FI) que es el que estamos siguiendo actualmente; Vermeer y Rahmstorf 2009: 0,75 a 1,9 m.] de lo proyectado por el IPCC. Resultados en esa misma línea se han hallado mediante un enfoque diferente basado en la cinemática de los glaciares; Pfeffer, Harper y O’Neel 2008 encuentran 80 cm. como el valor más probable, aunque examinando el escenario científicamente plausible más pesimista no pueden descartar un aumento del nivel del mar de hasta 2 metros (ref).”
Anil Ananthaswamy – Sea level rise: It’s worse than we thought – New Scientist 01/07/2009 – http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327151.300-sea-level-rise-its-worse-than-we-thought.html?full=true “Is there really a danger of a collapse, which would cause a sudden jump in sea levels? Paul Blanchon’s … In its 2007 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecast a sea level rise of between 19 and 59 centimetres by 2100, but this excluded «future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow». Crudely speaking, these estimates assume ice sheets are a bit like vast ice cubes sitting on a flat surface, which will stay in place as they slowly melt. But what if some ice sheets are more like ice cubes sitting on an upside-down bowl, which could suddenly slide off into the sea as conditions get slippery? «Larger rises cannot be excluded but understanding of these effects is too limited to assess their likelihood,» the IPCC report stated.”
Editorial: Now is the time to prepare for the great floods – New Scientist 2715 01/07/2009 – http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327152.800-now-is-the-time-to-prepare-for-the-great-floods.html “Three key facts about rising sea levels need to be hammered home to the world’s politicians and planners: sea-level rise is now inevitable, it will happen faster than most of us thought, and it will go on for a very long time … The growing consensus among climate scientists is that the «official» estimate of sea-level rise in the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – 0.2 to 0.6 metres by 2100 – is misleading. It could well be in the region of 1 to 2 metres, with a small risk of an even greater rise.”
Susan Solomon et al (2009) – Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS 106:1704-1709 – 10/02/2009 – Chemical Sciences Division, Earth System Research Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – Peer reviewed “The climate change that takes place due to increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1.000 years after emissions stop… Among illustrative irreversible impacts (…) are irreversible dry-season rainfall reductions in several regions comparable to those of the “dust bowl” era and inexorable sea level rise (…) over the next millennium or longer”
Dust Bowl – http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl – 27/01/2010 “El fenómeno de los años 1930 conocido como Dust Bowl fue uno de los peores desastres ecológicos del siglo XX. La sequía afectó a las llanuras y praderas que se extienden desde el Golfo de México hasta Canadá. La sequía se prolongó al menos entre 1932 y 1939, y fue precedida por un largo periodo de precipitaciones por encima de la media. El efecto «dust bowl» (cuenca de polvo) fue provocado por condiciones persistentes de sequía, favorecidas por años de prácticas de manejo del suelo que dejaron al mismo susceptible a las fuerzas del viento. El suelo, despojado de humedad, era levantado por el viento en grandes nubes de polvo y arena tan espesas que escondían el sol. Estos días eran referidos como «ventiscas negras» ó «viento negro».El Dust Bowl multiplicó los efectos en la región de la Gran Depresión y provocó el mayor desplazamiento de población habido en un corto espacio de tiempo en la historia de Estados Unidos. Tres millones de habitantes dejaron sus granjas durante los años 1930, y más de medio millón emigró a otros estados, especialmente hacia el oeste.”
A su vez, más de una cincuentena de personalidades apoyaron una Declaración al respecto. La emisión masiva de esta declaración, por ejemplo aquí, llevó a Facebook a levantar su veto.
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La humanidad se encuentra frente a una de las mayores disyuntivas que cabe imaginar. El sistema climático terrestre parece haber sido definitivamente desestabilizado, mientras la inmensa mayoría de la población vive ajena a un fenómeno llamado a marcar nuestras vidas de forma determinante y abrumadora. Comunidad científica, medios de comunicación y clase política se encuentran aturdidos por el fenómeno y sin respuestas adecuadas a la magnitud del desafío. Cuando las élites fracasan, es la hora de la gente.
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Les tres cares del canvi climàtic - La Calamanda, Biblioteca de Vinaròs, 25/03/2015
Hasta qué punto, y por qué, los informes del IPCC subestiman la gravedad del cambio climático - La Nau, Universitat de València, 18/11/2013/
Pseudociència i negacionisme climàtic: desmuntant els arguments fal·laciosos i els seus portadors - Facultat de Ciències Biològiques, Universitat de Barcelona, 22/05/2013
Canvi climàtic: el darrer límit – Jornades “Els límits del planeta” - Facultat de Ciències Biològiques, Universitat de Barcelona, 16/04/2013
El negacionisme climàtic organitzat: Estructura, finançament, influència i tentacles a Catalunya - Facultat de Ciències Geològiques, Universitat de Barcelona, 17/01/2013
El negacionisme climàtic organitzat: Estructura, finançament, influència i tentacles a Catalunya – Ateneu Barcelonès, 16/11/2012
Organització i comunicació del negacionisme climàtic a Catalunya – Reunió del Grup d’Experts en Canvi Climàtic de Catalunya – Monestir de les Avellanes, 29/06/2012
Cambio climático: ¿Cuánto es demasiado? + Análisis de puntos focales en comunicación del cambio climático – Jornadas Medios de Comunicación y Cambio Climático, Sevilla, 23/11/2012
El impacto emocional del cambio climático en las personas informadas - Centro Nacional de Educación Ambiental, Ministerio de Agricultura y Medio Ambiente, Valsaín (Segovia), 06/11/2012
Ètica econòmica, científica i periodística del canvi climàtic – Biblioteca Pública Arús, Barcelona, 19/09/2011
La comunicación del cambio climático en Internet – Centro Nacional de Educación Ambiental, Ministerio de Agricultura y Medio Ambiente, Valsaín (Segovia), 06/04/2011
El negacionismo de la crisis climática: historia y presente - Jornadas sobre Cambio Climático, Granada, 14/05/2010
Internet, la última esperanza del primer “Tipping point” – Centro Nacional de Educación Ambiental, Ministerio de Agricultura y Medio Ambiente, Valsaín (Segovia), 14/04/2010
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