Post by marchesarosa on Mar 26, 2012 13:03:12 GMT 1
Prof Roger Pielke Sr posts this on his blog
.....There is an article in the March 15 2012 issue of Nature that finally elevates land use change to its proper level as a first order climate forcing. While the article still does not recognize that land conversion, particularly in the low latitudes but also in the boreal forest regions continues and, therefore, will add further to how humans are altering the climate, it is an important step for the IPCC to finally make. In 1995 I resigned from the IPCC after efforts to get them to mention this issue were rebuffed (as they were when I was invited to review the 1992 Supplement to the IPCC report). I reported on this resignation in my post "My 1995 Resignation Letter From The IPCC"
pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/my-1995-resignation-letter-from-the-ipcc/
where I specifically mentioned land use change as one of the issues that their 1995 report was ignoring.
It has taken +20 years for the IPCC community to accept the reality of this climate forcing.
The article is Forecasters look back in time by Jeff Tollefson 2012: Nature Volume 483 Number 7389 pp245-368 www.nature.com/news/forecasters-look-back-in-time-1.10215
The article even has a headline that reads:
“It turns out that land-use changes were as large a player as fossil-fuel emissions were.”
The relevant text in the article reads:
Ron Stouffer, a climate researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey, says that his team’s model has already delivered surprises on the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. “It turns out that land-use changes, right up to about 1950 or even 1970, were as large a player as fossil-fuel emissions were,” he says. “And even today they are not trivial.”
This is a good start to accepting that the human role within the climate system is not dominated by CO2 and a few other greenhouse gases!
full article here pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/the-ipcc-finally-is-starting-to-accept-that-human-land-management-is-a-first-order-climate-forcing/
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So, for those of you who think CO2 is the be-all and end-all of human effects on the weather/climate, just think on! There are other impacts and they are NOT amenable to CO2 emissions reduction - so seek else where for your climate control button, perhaps!
.....There is an article in the March 15 2012 issue of Nature that finally elevates land use change to its proper level as a first order climate forcing. While the article still does not recognize that land conversion, particularly in the low latitudes but also in the boreal forest regions continues and, therefore, will add further to how humans are altering the climate, it is an important step for the IPCC to finally make. In 1995 I resigned from the IPCC after efforts to get them to mention this issue were rebuffed (as they were when I was invited to review the 1992 Supplement to the IPCC report). I reported on this resignation in my post "My 1995 Resignation Letter From The IPCC"
pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/my-1995-resignation-letter-from-the-ipcc/
where I specifically mentioned land use change as one of the issues that their 1995 report was ignoring.
It has taken +20 years for the IPCC community to accept the reality of this climate forcing.
The article is Forecasters look back in time by Jeff Tollefson 2012: Nature Volume 483 Number 7389 pp245-368 www.nature.com/news/forecasters-look-back-in-time-1.10215
The article even has a headline that reads:
“It turns out that land-use changes were as large a player as fossil-fuel emissions were.”
The relevant text in the article reads:
Ron Stouffer, a climate researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey, says that his team’s model has already delivered surprises on the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. “It turns out that land-use changes, right up to about 1950 or even 1970, were as large a player as fossil-fuel emissions were,” he says. “And even today they are not trivial.”
This is a good start to accepting that the human role within the climate system is not dominated by CO2 and a few other greenhouse gases!
full article here pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/the-ipcc-finally-is-starting-to-accept-that-human-land-management-is-a-first-order-climate-forcing/
-------------
So, for those of you who think CO2 is the be-all and end-all of human effects on the weather/climate, just think on! There are other impacts and they are NOT amenable to CO2 emissions reduction - so seek else where for your climate control button, perhaps!