Global warming on the rise

Two dire reports on the worsening situation of the Earth’s atmosphere.

From Raw Story:

Intense, months-long heat waves, fierce flooding and an ever-increasing human and economic toll from natural disasters are all things governments around the world should begin anticipating, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced on Friday.

In a draft report, the scientific body warned that climate extremes are more likely than ever in the coming decades, largely due to human activity.

[…] Through effective risk management, the climate panel said, governments can help to mitigate the worst effects in the coming years, and save many lives and potentially billions of dollars in the process.

Illustrating the ratio of what type of savings this could mean for future budgets, Tim Gore, Oxfam’s adviser on climate change, told The Guardian that every dollar spent now to adapt to climate change will soon represent $60 in savings.

“Governments must find the new money needed to invest now, and avoid the far higher costs of clean-up and lives lost later,” he reportedly said.

China is the world’s largest contributor of greenhouse gases, but the U.S. is second and has the highest output per-capita.

From Google News:

Global warming gases have hit record levels in the world's atmosphere, with concentrations of carbon dioxide up 39 percent since the start of the industrial era in 1750, the U.N. weather agency said Monday.

The new figures for 2010 from the World Meteorological Organization show that CO2 levels are now at 389 parts per million, up from about 280 parts per million a quarter-millenium ago. The levels are significant because the gases trap heat in the atmosphere.

WMO Deputy Secretary-General Jeremiah Lengoasa said CO2 emissions are to blame for about four-fifths of the rise. But he noted the lag between what gets pumped into the atmosphere and its effect on climate.

"With this picture in mind, even if emissions were stopped overnight globally, the atmospheric concentrations would continue for decades because of the long lifetime of these greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," he said.

Negotiators from virtually all the world's nations will gather later this month in South Africa to try to agree on steps to head off the worst of the climate disruptions that researchers say will result if concentrations hit around 450 parts per million.

That could happen within several decades at the current rate, though some climate activists and vulnerable nations say the world has already passed the danger point of 350 parts per million and must somehow undo it.

Dire news indeed.