Thread: Earth 'too hot for humans' within 300 years

Earth 'too hot for humans' within 300 years

12:25 PM Tuesday May 11, 2010


Photo / Wikimedia Commons

Planet Earth will be too hot for humans to inhabit in just 300 years, a group of scientists are saying.

Australian scientists have warned half the planet could "simply become too hot" for human habitation by the year 2300.

New research by the University of NSW has forecast the effect of climate change over the next three centuries, a longer time horizon than that considered in many similar studies.

It suggests without action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, mankind's activities could prompt average temperatures to rise as much as 10 to 12 per cent in the next three centuries.

The research, produced in partnership with the Purdue University in the United States, is published in the US-based scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on Tuesday.

"Much of the climate change debate has been about whether the world will succeed in keeping global warming to the relatively safe level of only two degrees celsius by 2100," said Professor Tony McMichael, from the Australian National University (ANU), in an accompanying paper also published in the PNAS.

"But climate change will not stop in 2100, and under realistic scenarios out to 2300, we may be faced with temperature increases of 12 degrees or even more."

Prof McMichael said if this were to happen, then current worries about sea level rises, occasional heatwaves and bushfires, biodiversity loss and agricultural difficulties would "pale into insignificance" compared to the global impacts.

Such a temperature rise would pose a "considerable threat to the survival of our species", he said, because "as much as half the currently inhabited globe may simply become too hot for people to live there".

Prof McMichael was joined by co-author Associate Professor Keith Dear, also from the ANU.

They describe the UNSW-Purdue study as "important and necessary" as, they said, there was a need to refocus government attention on the health impacts of global temperature rise.

There was also a real possibility, they said, that much of the existing climate modelling had underestimated the rate of global temperature rise.

Dr Dear said scientific authorities on the issue, such as the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), had struck a cautious tone in forecasting future temperature rise and its impact.

"In presenting its warnings about the future, the IPCC is very careful to be conservative, using mild language and low estimates of impacts," Dr Dear said.
"This is appropriate for a scientific body, but world governments - including our own - should be honest with us about the full range of potential dangers posed by uncontrolled emissions and the extremes of climate change that would inevitably result."

- AAP

Earth 'too hot for humans' within 300 years - World - NZ Herald News

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

"But climate change will not stop in 2100, and under realistic scenarios out to 2300, we may be faced with temperature increases of 12 degrees or even more."

Based on what evidence ?

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

climate modelling

That's right, climate change scientists don't need to use evidence, they just write computer programs and play with them.

Meh.

Originally Posted by Sir Wilson

Based on what evidence ?

Whatever's in the cited UNSW-Purdue study and PNAS article I'd expect.

Originally Posted by Sir Wilson

That's right, climate change scientists don't need to use evidence, they just write computer programs and play with them.

Is there any other way to to predict climate change?

As fast as western society is going down the toilet, does it really matter?

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

Originally Posted by Sir Wilson

Based on what evidence ?

Whatever's in the cited UNSW-Purdue study and PNAS article I'd expect.

Originally Posted by Sir Wilson

That's right, climate change scientists don't need to use evidence, they just write computer programs and play with them.

Is there any other way to to predict climate change?

That's the whole point MrAnt, all these climate change soothsayers are basing their dire claims and predications based all on mathematical and computer models, paleoclimatogical evidence shows that the is little to no link between levels of CO2 gas in the atmosphere and the earths climate. (win fact, previously the CO2 levels were much higher than now, but the earth was cooler).

In 300 years we will be able to travel to a colder time anyway.

And we will all be dead.

Not far different to Nostradamus, really.

Originally Posted by Sir Wilson

That's the whole point MrAnt, all these climate change soothsayers are basing their dire claims and predications based all on mathematical and computer models, paleoclimatogical evidence shows that the is little to no link between levels of CO2 gas in the atmosphere and the earths climate. (win fact, previously the CO2 levels were much higher than now, but the earth was cooler).

Please post something that substantiates your claim of 'little to no link'- yes, CO2 levels were higher a few hundred million years ago, but solar output was considerably lower.

CO2 levels during the late Ordovician

Originally Posted by Sir Wilson

paleoclimatogical evidence shows that the is little to no link between levels of CO2 gas in the atmosphere and the earths climate.

That's not my understanding of it at all, the two (CO2 levels and climate) appear to be inextricably linked:

One of the most remarkable aspects of the paleoclimate record is the strong correspondence between temperature and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere observed during the glacial cycles of the past several hundred thousand years. When the carbon dioxide concentration goes up, temperature goes up. When the carbon dioxide concentration goes down, temperature goes down....

NOAA Paleoclimatology Global Warming - The Data

Ice core data for the past 400,000 years. Note length of glacial cycles averages ~100,000 years. Blue curve is temperature, green curve is CO2, and red curve is windblown glacial dust (loess). Today's date is on the left side of the graph.

300 years time, who cares?

Originally Posted by jojo333

300 years time, who cares?

That's the spirit, I'm ok screw everyone else!

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

Originally Posted by jojo333

300 years time, who cares?

That's the spirit, I'm ok screw everyone else!

Straight.

Consider the leaps and bounds we have taken in last 300 years regarding technology and hopefully the same will apply in the next 300 years.

Maybe the space station will be a true space colony and humans can live there.

Originally Posted by Ghandi

Consider the leaps and bounds we have taken in last 300 years regarding technology and hopefully the same will apply in the next 300 years.

Maybe the space station will be a true space colony and humans can live there.

..or infest other planets.

Originally Posted by Ghandi

Maybe the space station will be a true space colony and humans can live there

Ahhhhhhhhh......Lost in Space.....I want to be Dr. Smith.

Never mind 300 years it's nigh on too hot now. Bloody sweltering today.

^^^

I have to agree with that- this is about the hottest May I can remember in the last decade in Thailand.

I'm in Bangkok at the factory and it is steaming particularly when standing next to machines processing at 250 degrees C.

The factory manager reckons it is 41 degrees in some areas of the factory amd without checking I tend to agree with him.

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

Earth 'too hot for humans' within 300 years

Well Slackula /Ant etc etc etc ,

you won,t have any worries then being a little BUG (ger)

When the world's population stops breeding children that the world simply cannot sustain, I'll eat and drink my way to a pleasurable death sometime this century.

Jesus may have made a considerable sacrifice to save mankind, but then again he had considerable perks for that job.

Let nature take its course. If mankind disappeared off the planet, it would be completely reforested within 300 years and CO2 levels would drop considerably as a result of the ensuing leap in photosynthesis, which gobbles up C02 and produces Oxygen.

simply open hue/saturation and twiddle a little

As I have said before this kind of scenario may destroy our technical civilization but by no means would kill off mankind.

Originally Posted by Popeye

Well Slackula /Ant etc etc etc ,

you won,t have any worries then being a little BUG (ger)

Sorry, what? Again in English please. I don't speak Dribblenese.

Originally Posted by jojo333

300 years time, who cares?

The world ends in 2012 anyway.

Jojo333
I like your avatar. Another voice of reason among the gay liberal caucus here.

They can't accurately predict what the weather's going to be next week, yet band about predictions for the next 300 years as though they're indisputable facts.

What a load of shit.