[News] from [guardian.co.uk]
[Environment > Climate change]
Met Office warns of catastrophic global warming in our lifetimes
> Study says 4C rise in temperature could happen by 2060
> Increase could threaten water supply of half world population
David Adam, environment correspondent
The Guardian, Monday 28 September 2009 Article history
Unchecked global warming could bring a severe temperature rise of 4C within many people's lifetimes, according to a new report for the British government that significantly raises the stakes over climate change.
The study, prepared for the Department of Energy and Climate Change by scientists at the Met Office, challenges the assumption that severe warming will be a threat only for future generations, and warns that a catastrophic 4C rise in temperature could happen by 2060 without strong action on emissions.
Officials from 190 countries gather today in Bangkok to continue negotiations on a new deal to tackle global warming, which they aim to secure at United Nations talks in December in Copenhagen.
"We've always talked about these very severe impacts only affecting future generations, but people alive today could live to see a 4C rise," said Richard Betts, the head of climate impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre, who will announce the findings today at a conference at Oxford University. "People will say it's an extreme scenario, and it is an extreme scenario, but it's also a plausible scenario."
According to scientists, a 4C rise over pre-industrial levels could threaten the water supply of half the world's population, wipe out up to half of animal and plant species, and swamp low coasts.
A 4C average would mask more severe local impacts: the Arctic and western and southern Africa could experience warming up to 10C, the Met Office report warns.
The study updates the findings of the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which said the world would probably warm by 4C by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. The IPCC also listed a more severe scenario, with emissions and temperatures rising further because of more intensive fossil fuel burning, but this was not considered realistic. "That scenario was downplayed because we were more conservative a few years ago. But the way we are going, the most severe scenario is looking more plausible," Betts said.
A report last week from the UN Environment Programme said emissions since 2000 have risen faster than even this IPCC worst-case scenario. "In the 1990s, these scenarios all assumed political will or other phenomena would have brought about the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by this point. In fact, CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel burning and industrial processes have been accelerating."
The Met Office scientists used new versions of the computer models used to set the IPCC predictions, updated to include so-called carbon feedbacks or tipping points, which occur when warmer temperatures release more carbon, such as from soils.
When they ran the models for the most extreme IPCC scenario, they found that a 4C rise could come by 2060 or 2070, depending on the feedbacks. Betts said: "It's important to stress it's not a doomsday scenario, we do have time to stop it happening if we cut greenhouse gas emissions soon." Soaring emissions must peak and start to fall sharply within the next decade to head off a 2C rise, he said. To avoid the 4C scenario, that peak must come by the 2030s.
A poll of 200 climate experts for the Guardian earlier this year found that most of them expected a temperature rise of 3C-4C by the end of the century.
The implications of a 4C rise on agriculture, water supplies and wildlife will be discussed at the Oxford conference, which organisers have billed as the first to properly consider such a dramatic scenario.
Mark New, a climate expert at Oxford who has organised the conference, said: "If we get a weak agreement at Copenhagen then there is not just a slight chance of a 4C rise, there is a really big chance. It's only in the last five years that scientists have started to realise that 4C is becoming increasingly likely and something we need to look at seriously." Limiting global warming to 2C could only be achieved with new technology to suck greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. "I think the policy makers know that. I think there is an implicit understanding that they are negotiating not about 2C but 3C or 5C."
[News > World news > Philippines]
Philippines storm death toll rises
At least 140 people have been killed and scores are missing after tropical storm brings worst flooding for four decades
Matthew Weaver and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 September 2009 13.11 BST Article history
The Philippines called today for international help as it sought to deal with the aftermath of a tropical storm that triggered the deadliest flooding in the country for 40 years.
At least 140 people were confirmed dead and another 32 were missing after the weekend flooding in and around the capital, Manila. Officials fear further bad weather could compound the situation.
Gilbert Teodoro, the defence secretary, said help from foreign governments would augment relief work already started by army troops, police and civilian volunteers.
He said welfare agencies had begun to provide food, medicine and other help to more than 115,000 people in government-run emergency shelters.
It is feared the death toll could increase significantly as rescue workers come to terms with the scale of the disaster, which happened when tropical storm Ketsana tore through the northern Philppines on Saturday. Teodoro estimated that 435,000 people had been displaced by the storm.
He told a press conference the official death toll excluded a reported 95 deaths in Antipolo City, east of Manila, and in Marikina City and Quezon City, two of the northern municipalities of metropolitan Manila.
Ketsana brought more than a month's worth of rain in 12 hours, swamping towns, sparking landslides and leaving neighbourhoods in Manila under water.
Amateur video footage showed cars swirling like driftwood in the floodwater. Stranded passengers waited to be rescued on the roof of one vehicle.
The government declared a "state of calamity" in metropolitan Manila and 25 storm-hit provinces, allowing officials to use emergency funds for relief and rescue.
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the president, today opened up the presidential palace as an emergency centre for victims.
She said the storm and flooding were "an extreme event" that "strained our response capabilities to the limit but ultimately did not break us".
Joselito Mendoza, the governor of Bulacan province, north of the capital, said: "People drowned in their own houses."
Ronald Manlangit, a 30-year-old resident of the Manila suburb of Marikina, said: "We're back to zero. Suddenly, all of our belongings were floating. If the water rose farther, all of us in the neighbourhood would have been killed."
Footage taken from a military helicopter yesterday showed survivors marooned on top of half-submerged buses and roofs in suburban Manila.
Some were clinging to power lines while others plodded through waist-high waters.
[Environment > Climate change]
Met Office warns of catastrophic global warming in our lifetimes
> Study says 4C rise in temperature could happen by 2060
> Increase could threaten water supply of half world population
David Adam, environment correspondent
The Guardian, Monday 28 September 2009 Article history
Unchecked global warming could bring a severe temperature rise of 4C within many people's lifetimes, according to a new report for the British government that significantly raises the stakes over climate change.
The study, prepared for the Department of Energy and Climate Change by scientists at the Met Office, challenges the assumption that severe warming will be a threat only for future generations, and warns that a catastrophic 4C rise in temperature could happen by 2060 without strong action on emissions.
Officials from 190 countries gather today in Bangkok to continue negotiations on a new deal to tackle global warming, which they aim to secure at United Nations talks in December in Copenhagen.
"We've always talked about these very severe impacts only affecting future generations, but people alive today could live to see a 4C rise," said Richard Betts, the head of climate impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre, who will announce the findings today at a conference at Oxford University. "People will say it's an extreme scenario, and it is an extreme scenario, but it's also a plausible scenario."
According to scientists, a 4C rise over pre-industrial levels could threaten the water supply of half the world's population, wipe out up to half of animal and plant species, and swamp low coasts.
A 4C average would mask more severe local impacts: the Arctic and western and southern Africa could experience warming up to 10C, the Met Office report warns.
The study updates the findings of the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which said the world would probably warm by 4C by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. The IPCC also listed a more severe scenario, with emissions and temperatures rising further because of more intensive fossil fuel burning, but this was not considered realistic. "That scenario was downplayed because we were more conservative a few years ago. But the way we are going, the most severe scenario is looking more plausible," Betts said.
A report last week from the UN Environment Programme said emissions since 2000 have risen faster than even this IPCC worst-case scenario. "In the 1990s, these scenarios all assumed political will or other phenomena would have brought about the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by this point. In fact, CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel burning and industrial processes have been accelerating."
The Met Office scientists used new versions of the computer models used to set the IPCC predictions, updated to include so-called carbon feedbacks or tipping points, which occur when warmer temperatures release more carbon, such as from soils.
When they ran the models for the most extreme IPCC scenario, they found that a 4C rise could come by 2060 or 2070, depending on the feedbacks. Betts said: "It's important to stress it's not a doomsday scenario, we do have time to stop it happening if we cut greenhouse gas emissions soon." Soaring emissions must peak and start to fall sharply within the next decade to head off a 2C rise, he said. To avoid the 4C scenario, that peak must come by the 2030s.
A poll of 200 climate experts for the Guardian earlier this year found that most of them expected a temperature rise of 3C-4C by the end of the century.
The implications of a 4C rise on agriculture, water supplies and wildlife will be discussed at the Oxford conference, which organisers have billed as the first to properly consider such a dramatic scenario.
Mark New, a climate expert at Oxford who has organised the conference, said: "If we get a weak agreement at Copenhagen then there is not just a slight chance of a 4C rise, there is a really big chance. It's only in the last five years that scientists have started to realise that 4C is becoming increasingly likely and something we need to look at seriously." Limiting global warming to 2C could only be achieved with new technology to suck greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. "I think the policy makers know that. I think there is an implicit understanding that they are negotiating not about 2C but 3C or 5C."
[News > World news > Philippines]
Philippines storm death toll rises
At least 140 people have been killed and scores are missing after tropical storm brings worst flooding for four decades
Matthew Weaver and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 September 2009 13.11 BST Article history
The Philippines called today for international help as it sought to deal with the aftermath of a tropical storm that triggered the deadliest flooding in the country for 40 years.
At least 140 people were confirmed dead and another 32 were missing after the weekend flooding in and around the capital, Manila. Officials fear further bad weather could compound the situation.
Gilbert Teodoro, the defence secretary, said help from foreign governments would augment relief work already started by army troops, police and civilian volunteers.
He said welfare agencies had begun to provide food, medicine and other help to more than 115,000 people in government-run emergency shelters.
It is feared the death toll could increase significantly as rescue workers come to terms with the scale of the disaster, which happened when tropical storm Ketsana tore through the northern Philppines on Saturday. Teodoro estimated that 435,000 people had been displaced by the storm.
He told a press conference the official death toll excluded a reported 95 deaths in Antipolo City, east of Manila, and in Marikina City and Quezon City, two of the northern municipalities of metropolitan Manila.
Ketsana brought more than a month's worth of rain in 12 hours, swamping towns, sparking landslides and leaving neighbourhoods in Manila under water.
Amateur video footage showed cars swirling like driftwood in the floodwater. Stranded passengers waited to be rescued on the roof of one vehicle.
The government declared a "state of calamity" in metropolitan Manila and 25 storm-hit provinces, allowing officials to use emergency funds for relief and rescue.
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the president, today opened up the presidential palace as an emergency centre for victims.
She said the storm and flooding were "an extreme event" that "strained our response capabilities to the limit but ultimately did not break us".
Joselito Mendoza, the governor of Bulacan province, north of the capital, said: "People drowned in their own houses."
Ronald Manlangit, a 30-year-old resident of the Manila suburb of Marikina, said: "We're back to zero. Suddenly, all of our belongings were floating. If the water rose farther, all of us in the neighbourhood would have been killed."
Footage taken from a military helicopter yesterday showed survivors marooned on top of half-submerged buses and roofs in suburban Manila.
Some were clinging to power lines while others plodded through waist-high waters.
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