Warming Diagnosis: Beyond Worst Case

From Adam Morton, in The Sydney Morning Herald.

KEY climate change measures are tracking near or beyond worse-case scenarios predicted just two years ago, according to a science update drawing on more than 200 recently published studies.

Co-authored by 26 climate scientists, The Copenhagen Diagnosis reports that melting of summer Arctic sea ice, loss of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and projections of the rise in sea levels have accelerated dramatically since 2007.

It finds the statistical global warming trend has continued over the past decade, contradicting assessments by some scientists – including Copenhagen Climate Council chairman Tim Flannery – that there has been a recent cooling.

The review cites NASA data that shows a trend of a 0.19-degree increase over the past decade despite short-term fluctuations due to El Nino, solar variability and volcanic eruptions.

Matthew England, co-director of the University of NSW Climate Change Research Centre, said the world’s three leading climate data series showed claims of temperatures cooling were ”patently untrue”.

”These are the data set even the sceptics go to, and they show that the last 10 years has been one of warming even if you start in [the particularly hot] 1998,” Professor England said.

”Since 2001, every year has been among the top-10 warmest on record. I don’t think that is cooling.”

The diagnosis is billed as a supplement to the 2007 report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and aimed at influencing debate at next month’s Copenhagen climate summit. Most of the scientists behind it are intergovernmental panel authors.

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