It is that certain political ideologies don’t want to use the term global warming because they’d rather not believe 7 billion technological beings on a modest planet could possibly affect something so vast. AR5 is to reference the fifth climate assessment report due out in 2013 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Preliminary reports of climate modelers add little to the previous analysis except enhanced modeling to the general conclusion.
Aside from the risks of general atmospheric warming, the most re-adaptive alteration of the planet is sea level change due to polar ice loss, combined with glacier loss to equal a 60 to 70 centimeter rise in ocean levels. About 30 inches that will accordingly alter the world’s coastlines… in short, don’t invest in south Florida. Nor Louisiana, Houston, Chesapeake Bay, New York City or Hudson’s Bay. Same for London.
Beyond ocean levels perhaps the greatest concern is what warming will do to the permafrost that covers vast areas of the northern hemisphere. Releasing as it melts unprecedented amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, that consequently may tip climate cycles toward unfamiliar seasonal cycles affecting rainfall, summer-time highs, extended periods of drought that in turn alter insect populations, forest cover and aquifer recharge.
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