Monday, April 16, 2007

Act Now!.....with caution

Dr Bryson Bates, director of the CSIRO Climate Program, tells us that

Climate change is real and the time to act is short. Adaptation to climate change is as important as the mitigation of greenhouse gases.

however as slattsnews tells us, the CSIRO's brochure disclamer says that

The projections are based on results from computer models
that involve simplifications of real physical processes that
are not fully understood. Accordingly, no responsibility will
be accepted by CSIRO for the accuracy of the projections
inferred from this brochure or for any person’s
interpretations, deductions, conclusions or actions in
reliance on this information.

Climate model responses are most uncertain in how they represent
feedback effects, particularly those dealing with
changes to cloud regimes, biological effects and
ocean-atmosphere interactions. The coarse spatial
resolution of climate models also remains a limitation
on their ability to simulate the details of regional
climate change. Future climate change will also be
influenced by other, largely unpredictable, factors
such as changes in solar radiation, volcanic eruptions
and chaotic variations within the climate system
itself. Rapid climate change, or a step-like climate
response to the enhanced greenhouse effect, is
possible but its likelihood cannot be defined. Because
changes outside the ranges given here cannot be
ruled out, these projections should be considered
with caution.


so ACT NOW! (with caution) on very misunderstood simplified models, that will all change with a bit of solar radiation or some volcanic eruption somewhere.

No comments: