"By the end of the century, the Earth could be more than 6C hotter than it is today, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We know that would be bad news - but just how bad? How big a rise will it take for the Alps to melt, the oceans to die and desert to conquer Europe and the Americas?"Täällä on englannin kielellä kuvattu sitten se ilmastonmuutoksen apokalyptinen skenaario, joka on aivan yhtä todennäköinen tällä hetkellä kuin lievemmätkin versiot. Juttu on sen verran pitkä että en rupea tulkkaamaan. Se lukee kuka ymmärtää englantia.
"Two degrees is also enough to cause the eventual complete melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which would raise global sea levels by seven metres. Much of the ice-cap disappeared 125,000 years ago, when global temperatures were 1-2C higher than now. Because of the sheer size of the ice sheet, no one expects this full seven metres to come before the end of the century, but a top Nasa climate scientist, James Hansen, is warning that the mainstream projections of sea level rise (of 50cm or so by 2100) could be dangerously conservative. As if to underline Hansen's warning, the rate of ice loss from Greenland has tripled since 2004."
"One scientific paper investigating "kill mechanisms" during the end-Permian suggests that methane hydrate explosions "could destroy terrestrial life almost entirely". Acting much like today's fuel-air explosives (or "vacuum bombs"), major oceanic methane eruptions could release energy equivalent to 10,000 times the world's stockpile of nuclear weapons."
EDIT 9.1.2009
Sea level rise of 1 meter within 100 years
