MIL/UT/IR Summary, Feb 19, 2008. Author:
February 18, 2008 - The question of climate change has become very vital, rather absolutely essential part of life and requires immediate solution, or else it will be too late. If we want to safeguard life on the Earth, we have no other option but to bring the Zero Carbon emission or; nearing to this level. It has now become a global opinion by scientists.
To change the climate, how much carbon can we possibly generate? How much will still push temperatures up?
The current presidential candidates of United States are all calling for serious carbon reductions over the next 40 years, but to no avail. A little reduction or some reduction can’t work.
The researchers at the Carnegie Institution for Science feel it is not enough. They have a firm opinion that if we wish to keep our climate safe and stable, we require to get away from carbon forever.
In a recent article, published in latest issue of Geophysical Research Letters, climate scientists used a detailed Earth system model to simulate what might happen to the Earth's climate at various levels of carbon emissions.
What's the most carbon you can generate and not warm the planet?
They ran various scenarios through the climate model, each time reducing the amount of carbon emissions. Even at the lowest levels, there was an increment of warming. In other words, until humans generate next to zero carbon emissions, there will be increased warming. There's no amount that the planet can absorb on a regular basis.
Once the carbon emissions in the simulation hit zero, the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere finally started to drop, getting absorbed into various carbon sinks such as the oceans and land vegetation. Even so, global temperatures remained high for at least 500 years after the end of carbon emissions.
The big worry are the climate tipping points. These are temperatures that might cause runaway processes that can't be stopped, such as the melting of the Arctic sea ice. If the world hits some point of severe climate instability, people might need to cut their carbon emissions to the absolute minimum.
