That’s the term we should use instead of “global warming,” says Harvard scientist John Holdren. He argues that “global warming” underrates the problem. Here’s why …
At the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Boston in mid-February, Holdren — who is director of the Program on Science, Technology and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government — made this argument during a panel called “Global Warming Heats Up: How the Media Covers Climate Change.” He said the phrase “global warming” is inaccurate, because what’s happening to the climate is not uniform, not gradual and not benign. Global warming makes it sound like it’s warming everywhere — and “warming” sounds kind of comforting. It’s not necessarily warming everywhere around the globe, but the global mean surface temperature is going up.
So why don’t we all use “global climate disruption”? Why doesn’t the media use it?
During the panel, New York Times science reporter Andrew Revkin said his editors would never go for it. I think it’s because the term is too long to use in headlines and also somewhat vague (what about the climate is being disrupted and how?). But “global warming” immediately conveys a worlwide issue having to do with rising temperatures; it gets the basic gist of the issue correct, but doesn’t convey everything about it, certainly not the nuances or impacts. Since the media already adopted “global warming” years ago, they want to stick with it. It’s now a recognized issue label.
Many scientists use the term “climate change” to refer to global warming. “Climate change” doesn’t sound very scary, either. But “global climate disruption” — that gets your attention.
Holdren predicts that the impacts of global climate disruption will keep the issue as a top-tier news item. Those impacts include more heat waves, floods, droughts (and more deaths from them); more risk of wildfires; hundreds of millions of people exposed to increased water stress (read: lack of water); more coral bleaching; more damage from floods and storms; increased malnutrition and infectious diseases; higher risk of extinction for 30 percent of species; warmer and more frequent hot days and nights; more heavy precipitation events; increase in hurricane intensity; sea level rise of 7 inches to 2 feet this century, and more after that.
All of these projected impacts taken from the IPCC Synthesis Report and Physical Science Basis report from last year.
By the end of this century we’ll likely have a different climate in many places, marked by more extreme acts of nature noted above.
Does “global warming” accurately reflect the issue? Does the label we use for this issue matter? Should we change it? Would “global climate disruption” make you more inclined to worry about the issue — and politicians more inclined to act?
In short, does global climate disruption by any other name smell just as foul? Post your comments here.
John Holdren fails to adhere to the data. There has been no statistically-significant increase in global mean surface temperatures for a decade. This, I suspect, is why he and others want to abandon the phrase “global warming”. The IPCC has flagrantly exaggerated the effect of greenhouse gases on temperature. Therefore the climate is not responding as the models on which it relies had predicted. In turn, those who have aligned themselves with the IPCC’s inaccurate projections are finding a way out of their dilemma by talking of “climate change” or “climate disruption” rather than “global warming”. Non notatio, sed notio, as Karl Friedrich Gauss used to say. The notion of a high climate sensitivity has been discredited not only by a stream of peer-reviewed papers published since the IPCC’s latest report, but also by events. Rather than discussing the notatio, scientists should be studying the notio, and learning how and why the IPCC’s modelers have made so substantial an error in their central calculations. - Monckton of Brenchley
No evidence. Garbage.
RW
Monckton — I must disagree. Climate scientists can only get their models to replicate the temperature increase we’ve seen over the last 150 years by including the effects of greenhouse gases. Natural forcings alone don’t do it, but adding greenhouse gases to the models does do it.
I’m not sure what you mean by “high climate sensitivity,” but we can’t ignore the fact that CO2 levels are the highest they’ve been in 650,000 years — and that we’ve pumped those levels up mostly in the last 250 years. And that CO2 levels historically correlate with temperature.
Also, I’m not sure which papers and events you are referring to.
i would also like to rename it. i have a theory this has occured countless times thru geological history.i would appreciate it if anyone can dispute this claim. anyway…i want to call it political reactionary drivel.humans will always effect their environment. and since i know you will edit this comment out,,,vote oboma or your racist.
Here we go again “CO2 Levels”, “highest they’ve been in 650,000 years”, …
We are talking about less than 400 ppm total CO2 in the air today.
The experiments that show it as a GH gas, do so by showing that it gets 20% warmer when exposed to the same heat source as air.
So once again I will do the math for you.
20% of 400 ppm is 80 millionths total effect of all CO2 in air (max).
Most of these AGW/AGCC guys claim that CO2 has gone up 100 ppm in the last hundred years.
If the earth is 1 degree warmer today than 100 years ago, guess what … 20 millionths of that can be attributed to the increase. (100 ppm * 20% * 1 degree)
Debunking the whole Man Made CO2 thing, really, is no more complicated than that.
I would have to say the entire “climate crisis” idea is balderdash cooked up by utopian socialists and other collectivists to scare the populace into compliance with their dictates. If they are successful, mankind will enter a “new” dark age losing much of the technology and knowledge we spent the last several hundred years attaining.
The earth has warmed and cooled for eons. It will continue to do so. In fact, according to the data I find, we have been cooling for a few years now. Statistically there are no more and certainly no more violent hurricanes, tornadoes or any other type of storm than in the rest of recorded history.
Climate is. Weather is. We have insufficient data and tools to even get a grip on climate. In addition, we have no clue as to what the climate “should” be like. A little warming would be a boon to agriculture. A little cooling could spell disaster. We as humans are likely to experience a bit of both in the next thousand or so years.
Making economic and regulatory policy based on voodoo non-science will be a complete and total disaster. Millions will die and the culture we know will cease to exist.
Does anyone actually believe that folks like Al GOre and Barak Obama and Hiilary Clinton and George Bush and John McCain actually have any clue as to what the scientific method is? Or that they know how many bushels of wheat will be needed nexxt year? Or what heat will be “needed” next year in a factory in Moline? All of these folks are political hacks that will say and do anything to maintain power. They have little or no knowledge of any real subject and are not interested in learning. They are interested in hubris, ego and power. That is the nature of the politician.
There has never been, nor will there ever be, a successfully managed economy. And be sure you all understand, that is what all this is about. To frighten folks into accepting tyranical rule.
Mr. Obvious, your argument makes no sense either logically or mathematically.
At the end of 2006, CO2 levels were at 381 or 382 ppm, per the World Meteorological Organization or NOAA, repsectively. (See an article describing the WMO report here, http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSFLE36103820071123?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews and see the EPA reference the NOAA data here, http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/pastcc_fig1.html)
CO2 levels have risen 36 percent since a pre-industrial value of about 280 ppm, per the IPCC report and the Reuters story about the WMO cited above.
As you can see in this graph of CO2 levels over the last 650,000 years, this 36 percent spike is much higher than the cycles preceding it (http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/pastcc_fig1.html). Scientists have measured CO2 levels in ice cores going back 650,000 years, and also directly from stations on Mauna Loa in Hawaii and in Antarctica since 1958.
Even though CO2 and other greenhouse gases comprise a small percentage of the air, they are essential for keeping the planet warm enough for habitation. Without them, surface temperatures would be 60 degrees Fahrenheit cooler. (see http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/kids/greenhouse.html)
The key point here is that carbon dioxide levels now exceed the natural range of the last 650,000 years. At the same time that CO2 has spiked up by 36 percent, temperatures have also risen by 1.3 degrees F.
The main source of CO2 from human activities in the last 250 years has been from fossil fuels.
The 2007 IPCC report concluded with “very high confidence” (which means 90 percent certainty on their scale) that “the globally averaged net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming.”
For a good overview of climate change, see this EPA site, http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/index.html
For a graph of the Mauna Loa record, see http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.html
For info about the composition of air see http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/earthfact.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth’s_atmosphere