The global Warming Questions Part 4 - The possibility of a 6m rise in Sea Levels

Over the past few decades climate modelling has come out of the dark ages and into the computer age. Initially when climatologists were trying to predict the effects of global warming they had limited tools at their disposal. Computers were jus in their infancy and although they helped a great deal they did not have the power to really predict future events.

In the sixties the climate models had run for years before any real tangible predictions came to light, but with computers increasing in power and capacity these predictions take hours if not minuets.

Sceptics have always dismissed the climate models saying that there are too many unknown factors in the climate that the results will never be accurate.

The climate modellers had to wait for an event to prove that their predictions would be correct and that time came in the early 1990’s when Mount Pinatubo erupted spewing thousands of tons of ash into the atmosphere.

The climate models predicted that the earth would cool on average by 0.5°C due to the dimming effect of the ash, and the fall in temperature would be felt most in southern Europe.

We had to wait a few years, but the models were correct.

Climate modelling had come of age, and proved to be worth its salt.

Although the climate models show accuracy in global conditions they can not accurately provide details of local conditions, other than the weather forecasts of a few weeks in advance.

During his weather modelling experiments in the early 1960’s Edward Lorenz discovered that slight variations in the figures used for the calculations could throw up some huge differences in the outcome results. This led him to his famous theory ‘that if a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil there could be a tornado in Texas.

In 2006 the BBC ran an experiment asking viewers to load a piece of software on to their PCs and used it to run climate models. The result was the worlds biggest ever climate model experiment.

http://climateprediction.net/

The results are ongoing and continue to show us some amazing results from no change in temp to an increase in 6°C.

These results actually show us that there is no way we can accurately predict the future. There are so many variables that can have major impact in the results. But the consensus of opinion is giving us an increase in the temperature worldwide.

The increase in temperatures resulting in the speed of glacier movement and melting of global ice caps causes great concern.

Model show us that before the end of this century sea levels will more than likely rise by 6m.

This problem here is that over 70% of the world’s population, and most of the large cities and financial powerhouses are located within the 6m seal level rise Zone.

This coupled with more extreme weather, storm surges and flooding will disrupt all the major countries of the world either directly or indirectly.