Sunday, December 5, 2010

Climate change threat to tropical forests 'greater than suspected'

John Vidal in the Guardian (UK): The chances of northern Europe facing a new ice age, or of catastrophic sea-level rises of almost four metres that swamp the planet over the next century, have been ruled out by leading scientists. But the risk of tropical forests succumbing to drought brought on by climate change as well as the acceleration of methane emissions from melting permafrost, is greater, according to the Met Office Hadley Centre, in its latest climate change review.

The government-run climatology centre also suggests that, by the latter half of this century, the Arctic could become largely ice-free in summer, given new evidence of a slightly faster rate of decline. The study examined international peer-reviewed science over the past three years, and involved remodelling data on a more powerful computer. The research will feed into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's assessment in 2013.

"The evidence of the dangerous impact of climate change is clearer than ever," said Vicky Pope, head of Hadley's climate predictions programme. "New understanding of the science suggests the overall impact will be about the same [but] in some cases, like the risk of methane release from wetlands and permafrost melting, [we] now conclude that the risks are greater."…

Spruce Nature Trail about 0.1 km from the Hoh Rain Forest Visitor Center, near the end of the loop, shot by Walter Siegmund (Wsiegmund), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

1 comment:

snore stop said...

Your blog's informative is very rich in contents.