After making doom and gloom predictions for years, (we should all be dead by now) Jim Hansen has made another.
Mark this date - Sunday 18 January 2009.
'We have only four years left to act on climate change - America has to lead' Quote from Hansen.
"(Obama's) four-year administration offers the world a last chance to get things right, Hansen said. If it fails, global disaster - melted sea caps, flooded cities, species extinctions and spreading deserts - awaits mankind."
melted sea caps?? Does this mean melted ice caps when both poles have more ice now than 1980?
Flooded cities?? A paper by Cazenave et al (http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/home/files/Cazenave_et_al_GPC_2008.pdf) can be summarised as follows :
since 2003, sea level has continued to rise but with a rate (2.5+/-0.4 mm/yr) somewhat reduced compared to the 1993-2003 decade (3.1+/-0.4mm/yr).
So, at the rate of the latest decade, the rise over a full century would be ~254mm or,even by using the previous decade's rate, over a full century the rise would be ~310mm.
Less than a third of a metre, around one foot in the old currency!
How many cities will be flooded in the next 100 years? Even more importantly, Mr Hansen, how many cities will be flooded in the NEXT FOUR YEARS?
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