Sunday, February 22, 2009

***Worsening Climate Numbers NYT

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/21/opinion/21sat3.html?ref=opinion
NYT: The 2007 assessment established a base line of expectation, but it is already looking outdated.
From all over the globe, in bits and pieces, data are accumulating that suggest we may have already left behind the world of possibilities portrayed in the panel's report. Sea ice has melted more quickly than expected. And, according to a recent report from the United States Geological Survey, sea levels in 2100 could increase by more than double the 1.5 feet rise projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (it chose not to add in water from eroding ice sheets because they remain poorly understood). Add to that the hard reality that carbon dioxide is a long-lived gas, and the picture of global warming is both volatile and forbidding.