The IPCC’s prediction for average sea-level rise this century is 13 inches (if global warming continues unchecked). Today’s report from a group of climatologist ups the prediction to 33 inches. This is what the difference looks like on a pair of identical twins. Photo Illustration courtesy Greg Ceo.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- the world’s foremost body for weighing and assessing climate science -- received a kick in the pants today from members who say the climate situation is much worse than the IPCC has so far reported.

Twenty-six climatologists -- including 14 IPCC members -- have released a startling update to the panel’s work, reporting that sea levels could rise and methane-laden arctic permafrost could melt much sooner than the panel had anticipated.

“The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Updating the World on the Latest Climate Science” is not an official IPCC report; it’s a summary of the hundreds of peer-reviewed research papers that have been published since the IPCC’s last assessment. It was released now to fill the long gap in between official IPCC reports -- the last was released in 2007, but the drafting text is more than three years old, and the next isn't scheduled until 2013. It was also timed to the Copenhagen climate talks, of course.

The essence of the new report is that things are grimmer than the IPCC has reported. And it’s not like the panel has been painting a rosy picture -- its 2007 report concluded that the warming-induced melting of the Greenland ice sheet could create significant sea-level rise in this century. IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said at the time, “If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."

The new diagnosis finds that arctic sea ice is melting 40 percent faster than the panel estimated just a few years ago. Another startling finding: Satellites have found that the global average for rising sea levels was 3.4 millimeters per year from 1993-2008. The IPCC estimated it would be 1.9 mm for that period -- short by 80 percent.

The report’s authors (who include the preeminent Stephen Schneider) write that “if global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2°C above pre-industrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly." If you're keeping score, 2015 is just over five years away -- somewhat less comforting than the distant "2050" you used to hear so much about.

In a time when the correspondence of scientists is hacked and stolen and as a matter of political strategy, some will no doubt dismiss the group’s research entirely. And even IPCC fans may question whether its decision-making process is swift enough to remain relevant. It certainly seems that events are outpacing the political system's ability to deal with them.

Below are the key findings from the report:

Surging greenhouse gas emissions: Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were nearly 40 percent higher than those in 1990. Even if global emission rates are stabilized at present-day levels, just 20 more years of emissions would give a 25 percent probability that warming exceeds 2°C, even with zero emissions after 2030. Every year of delayed action increases the chances of exceeding 2°C warming.

Recent global temperatures demonstrate human-induced warming: Over the past 25 years temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.19°C per decade, in very good agreement with predictions based on greenhouse gas increases. Even over the past ten years, despite a decrease in solar forcing, the trend continues to be one of warming. Natural, short-term fluctuations are occurring as usual, but there have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend.

Acceleration of melting of ice-sheets, glaciers and ice-caps: A wide array of satellite and ice measurements now demonstrate beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in other parts of the world has also accelerated since 1990.

Rapid Arctic sea-ice decline: Summer-time melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models. The area of sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40 percent greater than the average prediction from IPCC AR4 climate models.

Current sea-level rise underestimated: Satellites show recent global average sea-level rise (3.4 mm/yr over the past 15 years) to be ~80 percent above past IPCC predictions. This acceleration in sea-level rise is consistent with a doubling in contribution from melting of glaciers, ice caps, and the Greenland and West-Antarctic ice-sheets

Sea-level predictions revised: By 2100, global sea-level is likely to rise at least twice as much as projected by Working Group 1 of the IPCC AR4; for unmitigated emissions it may well exceed 1 meter. The upper limit has been estimated as ~ 2 meters sea level rise by 2100. Sea level will continue to rise for centuries after global temperatures have been stabilized, and several meters of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries.

Delay in action risks irreversible damage: Several vulnerable elements in the climate system (e.g. continental icesheets, Amazon rainforest, West African monsoon and others) could be pushed towards abrupt or irreversible change if warming continues in a business-as-usual way throughout this century. The risk of transgressing critical thresholds (“tipping points”) increases strongly with ongoing climate change. Thus waiting for higher levels of scientific certainty could mean that some tipping points will be crossed before they are recognized.

The turning point must come soon: If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2 °C above pre-industrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly. To stabilize climate, a decarbonized global society -- with near-zero emissions of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases -- needs to be reached well within this century. More specifically, the average annual per-capita emissions will have to shrink to well under 1 metric ton CO2 by 2050. This is 80-95% below the per-capita emissions in developed nations in 2000.

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Whether you’ve been hitting snooze each time a global climate conference rolls around or you’re looking for a refresher before the Copenhagen climate talks this December, Grist has an interactive timeline to bring you up to speed. And don’t forget to keep tabs on all our juicy coverage of the Copenhagen climate talks.

The road to Copenhagen on Dipity.

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My video series, Climate Denial Crock of the Week, has been slowly gaining an audience among people who need ammunition around the electronic water cooler. (Thanks to Real Climate and Climate Progress for the shout-outs.)  Send links to these videos to that irritating troll on your blog, or your nice-but-clueless-about-climate neighbor who needs some good information.

I'm remixing some of the earlier videos to make these as user-friendly and entertaining as possible.  This video addresses one of the most serious consequences of climate change, and one of the most common denialist crocks that you hear about it:

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Amazing news just arrived at 350.org headquarters.

Rajendra Pachauri is the U.N.'s top climate scientist. He leads the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which every five years produces the authoritative assessment of climate science. Its last report, in 2007, helped set the target of 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a target that many environmental groups and national governments have adopted as their goal for Copenhagen.

As many of you know, that number is out of date. When Jim Hansen and other scientists looked at phenomena like the Arctic ice melt of the last two summers, they produced new data demonstrating that 350 ppm is the bottom line. But it's been hard to get that news out to the powers that be. So today it comes as enormous and welcome news that Pachauri, from his New Delhi office, said that 350 was the number.

"As chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, I cannot take a position because we do not make recommendations," said Rajendra Pachauri when asked if he supported calls to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations below 350 ppm. "But as a human being I am fully supportive of that goal. What is happening, and what is likely to happen, convinces me that the world must be really ambitious and very determined at moving toward a 350 target," he told Agence France-Presse in an interview.

Many national governments (and even some environmental groups) have stuck to a 450 ppm target--it seems politically "realistic." But Pachauri has taken away that gray area, and laid down the real bottom line. Physics and chemistry say 350, and that's that.

Pachauri cited the decision of the small island nations and less developed countries to endorse the 350 target. "I think this is a good development," he said. "Now people -- including some scientists -- see the seriousness of the impacts of climate change, and the fact that things are going to get substantially worse than what we had anticipated."

This news makes it much easier for all of us to push hard leading up to the Oct. 24 "Day of Action" [http://www.350.org/actions] and the December Copenhagen climate talks. It's clear now that science is powerfully on the side of 350. Now we need the political world to follow suit.

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Environmentalists assert that the reports by the panel are watered down by a requirement that sponsoring governments approve its summaries line by line.

Some experts fret that the organization, charged with assessing fast-evolving science, has failed to keep pace with an explosion of climate research.

At the same time, scientists who question the likelihood of a calamitous disruption of the Earth's climate accuse the panel of cherry-picking studies and playing down levels of uncertainty about the severity of global warming.

"It just feels like the I.P.C.C. has gone from being a broker of science to a gatekeeper," said John R. Christy, a climate scientist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and a former panel author.

Ah, journalistic "balance," how scientifically -- and morally -- inappropriate you have become.  And quoting Long Wrong Christy?  Say it ain't so.

The above excerpt comes from the front page of today's NYT's "Science Times" section in a piece titled, "Nobel Halo Fades Fast for Climate Change Panel," by our old friend Andy Revkin.  Now, one can objectively accuse the IPCC of many things, but overestimating or overselling the threat of global warming is just not one of them.  Quite the reverse.

The world's emission path this decade quickly soared higher than their worst case-scenario (see U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists: "Recent observations confirm ... the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised" - 1000 ppm).

The IPCC has focused on a wide range of emissions scenarios without clearly explaining to the public the unmitigated catastrophe that faces us on the business as usual path:

As Dr. Vicky Pope, Head of Climate Change Advice for the Met Office's Hadley Centre explains on their website (here):

Contrast that with a world where no action is taken to curb global warming. Then, temperatures are likely to rise by 5.5 °C and could rise as high as 7 °C above pre-industrial values by the end of the century.

Instead of such clarity, the IPCC provides this sort of gobbledygook to the public and policymakers in its 2007 Fourth Assessment:

Best estimates and likely ranges for global average surface air warming for six SRES emissions marker scenarios are given in this assessment and are shown in Table SPM.3. For example, the best estimate for the low scenario (B1) is 1.8°C (likely range is 1.1°C to 2.9°C), and the best estimate for the high scenario (A1FI) is 4.0°C (likely range is 2.4°C to 6.4°C).  Although these projections are broadly consistent with the span quoted in the TAR (1.4°C to 5.8°C), they are not directly comparable (see Figure SPM.5). The Fourth Assessment Report is more advanced as it provides best estimates and an assessed likelihood range for each of the marker scenarios. The new assessment of the likely ranges now relies on a larger number of climate models of increasing complexity and realism, as well as new information regarding the nature of feedbacks from the carbon cycle and constraints on climate response from observations.

Oh yeah, Andy, that's "playing down levels of uncertainty about the severity of global warming."

The IPCC's blather makes it easy for journalists and deniers and anyone else who wants to downplay the results to focus on the low scenarios -- without any indication whatsoever of the massive amount of clean energy the world would have to accelerate into the marketplace to get into B1.

In fact, we're headed toward 800 to 1000 ppm on our current emissions path -- which Revkin knows -- and the IPCC has few if any analyses of what that would mean for humanity, probably because most scientists simply can't believe humanity would be so stupid as to destroy the basis of its own civilization:  a livable climate.

Why does the IPCC lowball likely warming?  Despite its claim of including "new information regarding the nature of feedbacks from the carbon cycle," virtually none of the IPCC models used in the 2007 report model most (if any) of the following positive, amplifying feedbacks:

Even Hadley's model only includes only or two of those.

The IPCC's sea level rise estimate was so lowballed, so instantly out-of-date, that even the uber-lowballers of the Bush administration were forced to concede a mere one year later that the IPCC numbers were simply too out of date to be quoted anymore:

Far from cherry-picking the scariest studies, the IPCC's policy of shutting down scientific input long before the writing begins and their consensus-based writing process means the reports are basically dead on arrival.  Here's what we know about SLR now from the literature:

But the IPCC is too slow and unwieldy to even issue an updated report on any of these subjects.

I do agree with part of Revkin's analysis -- the part that warns the IPCC is becoming irrelevant.  As I noted in April ("Has the IPCC rendered itself irrelevant?"), you can go to their website and learn:

At its 28th Session (9-10 April 2008, Budapest), the Panel decided to carry out a 5th Assessment to be finalized in 2014.

2014?  How useless is that?

While glacial change may no longer be an apt term for what is actually happening to the world's glaciers, it is an ironically apt term for what has happened to the IPCC.

Originally the IPCC's assessments of the state of understanding of the science were going to be every 5 years, then that slid to every 6 years, and now we are apparently at 7 years between reports.

Pathetic for them.  Tragic for us.  Well, it would be tragic if the reports weren't so lame, so easily spun by deniers.

And speaking of deniers, why is anyone still quoting John Christy these days?  Isn't there any exception in the journalistic handbook for people who have been willfully wrong for so damn long?

Christy, of course, is one of the nation's few remaining seriously credentialed deniers (or, more accurately, a delayer, inactivist, and denier-eq), who has arguably been wrong longer than any other serious denier-eq and thus deserves our inattention and scorn (see "Should you believe anything John Christy and Roy Spencer say?"). [A denier-eq is someone who pretends to accept the science as laid out by the IPCC, but who advances arguments and policy proposals that are no different from those who deny the science.]

Is there any objective source in the world who might inform our opinion of Christy?  Yes.

In the Vermont case on the state's effort to embrace California's tailpipe GHG emissions standards, the car companies brought in Christy as an expert witness to rebut NASA's James Hansen (see here). In one footnote on the sea level rise issue, the judge noted, "it appears that the bulk of scientific opinion opposes Christy's position." By the way, for all you deniers/delayers/doubters/denier-eqs, let me quote further from the judge:

There is widespread acceptance of the basic premises that underlie Hansen's testimony. Plaintiffs' own expert, Dr. Christy, agrees with the IPCC's assessment that in the light of new evidence and taking into account remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last fifty years is likely to have been due to the increase in GHG concentrations. Tr. vol. 14-A, 145:18-148:7 (Christy, May 4, 2007). Christy agrees that the increase in carbon dioxide is real and primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels, which changes the radiated balance of the atmosphere and has an impact on the planet's surface temperature toward a warming rate. Id. at 168:11-169:10.

Christy also agreed that climate is a nonlinear system, that is, that its responses to forcings may be disproportionate, and rapid changes would be more difficult for human beings and other species to adapt to than more gradual changes. Id. at 175:2-174:11. He further agreed with Hansen that the regulation's effect on radiative forcing will be proportional to the amount of emissions reductions, and that any level of emissions reductions will have at least some effect on the radiative forcing of the climate.

Christy is (mostly) a delayer or denier-eq these days, now that his denier disanalysis has been dissed and the real science is well verified by real observation.

Indeed, Christy was wrong -- dead wrong -- for a very long time, which created one of the most enduring denier myths, that the satellite data didn't show the global warming that the surface temperature data did. As RealClimate wrote last year:

We now know, of course, that the satellite data set confirms that the climate is warming, and indeed at very nearly the same rate as indicated by the surface temperature records. Now, there's nothing wrong with making mistakes when pursuing an innovative observational method, but Spencer and Christy sat by for most of a decade allowing -- indeed encouraging -- the use of their data set as an icon for global warming skeptics. They committed serial errors in the data analysis, but insisted they were right and models and thermometers were wrong. They did little or nothing to root out possible sources of errors, and left it to others to clean up the mess, as has now been done.

Amazingly (or not), the "serial errors in the data analysis" all pushed the (mis)analysis in the same, wrong direction. Coincidence? You decide. But I find it hilarious that the deniers and delayers still quote Christy/Spencer/UAH analysis lovingly, but to this day dismiss the "hockey stick" and anything Michael Mann writes, when his analysis was in fact vindicated by the august National Academy of Sciences in 2006 (see New Scientist's "Climate myths: The ‘hockey stick' graph has been proven wrong").

The Vermont judge concluded:

Christy criticized the Hadley and Canadian models, suggesting that they were extreme and were downscaled unreliably. Tr. vol. 14-A, 121:13-122:4 (Christy, May 4, 2007). Although Christy testified that he had used climate models, however, he did not claim to be an expert on climate modeling. Id. at 78:20-79:3. In fact, his view of the reliability of climate models does not fall within the mainstream of climate scientists; his view is that models are, in general, "scientifically crude at best," although they are used regularly by most climate scientists and he himself used the compiled results of a variety of climate models in preparing his report and testimony in this case.

Can't the media be as objective as a judge?

UPDATE:  A commentor makes the point that Revkin pits environmentalists saying the IPCC is watered down against scientists who say it oversells the threat.  Ironically Revkin quotes a top scientist, Christopher Field, founding director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, in his piece on a secondary issue -- "psychological and sociological research on how people act in the face of uncertain but substantial threats," when Field has been one of the most outspoken scientists on how the threat is much more dire than the IPCC says (see "AAAS: Climate change is coming much harder, much faster than predicted").

"We are basically looking now at a future climate that's beyond anything we've considered seriously in climate model simulations"...

The 2007 fourth assessment presented at a "very conservative range of climate outcomes" but the next report will "include futures with a lot more warming," Field said.

"We now know that, without effective action, climate change is going to be larger and more difficult to deal with than we thought."

UPDATE 2:  A reader emails me about the NYT headline, "Nobel Halo Fades Fast for Climate Change Panel," noting that in November 2007, the right-wing American Thinker wrote a piece beginning:

It has been less than a month but already the glow from Al Gore's Nobel Peace prize is tarnished.

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Conventional wisdom has it that the effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is going to be long, expensive, and painful for consumers; efficiency can at best defray the costs.

It may not be visible to the casual news consumer, but that climate/energy CW is substantially shaped by economic modeling. I've argued in the past that such models systematically overstate the costs and understate the benefits of clean energy and emission reductions. I won't rehash all those points here (you're welcome!), but suffice to say, one of the main arguments was that the models consistently underestimate energy efficiency.

Several recent studies examine the potential for energy efficiency to reduce emissions at a negative cost, i.e., a profit, and the results bolster the argument. Importantly, these are ground-up studies, based on history and practice, rather than top-down studies based on economic theories and spreadsheets. From that perspective, the news turns out to be quite good.

"The Positive Economics of Climate Change Policies: What the Historical Evidence Can Tell Us"

Energy efficiency has outperformed expectations again and again, insofar as expectations are set by econometric projections, says Skip Laitner of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. He took a thorough look at the "economic data and the historical record." Here's what he found:

• Energy efficiency investments can provide up to one-half of the needed greenhouse-gas emissions reductions most scientists say are needed between now and the year 2050.
• Investments in more energy-productive technologies can also lead to a substantial net energy bill savings for the consumer and for the nation's businesses. In the diagnostic assessment summarized in this report, savings are on the order of two trillion dollars by 2050 (measured in constant 2007 dollars).
• Non-energy expenditures within the U.S. tend to be more labor-intensive and provide a greater rate of contribution to the nation's Gross Domestic Product compared to expenditures on conventional energy supplies. Instead of taking jobs away from the economy, the diagnostic assessment described in this report suggests a small but net positive gain in the economy.
• Hence, shifting away from the production and consumption of conventional energy resources, in favor of more productive investments in energy-efficient technologies, can lead to a more robust economy and to a greater level of overall employment opportunities with the U.S.

How can that energy efficiency potential be unlocked? Funny you should ask.

"Unlocking Energy Efficiency in the U.S. Economy"

McKinsey's latest study is their most comprehensive assessment of efficiency yet (ably summarized by Joe Romm). Here are their efficiency options, mapped on a cost curve:

McKinsey & Co.

The study concludes ...

... a holistic approach would yield gross energy savings worth more than $1.2 trillion, well above the $520 billion needed through 2020 for upfront investment in efficiency measures (not including program costs). Such a program is estimated to reduce end-use energy consumption in 2020 by 9.1 quadrillion BTUs, roughly 23 percent of projected demand, potentially abating up to 1.1 gigatons of greenhouse gases annually.

As Joe says, that's tantamount to saying "the entire 2020 target in the Waxman-Markey climate bill could be met with energy efficiency at a net savings to U.S. consumers and businesses of $700 billion."

One crucial thing to note about the McKinsey study is that it is only about stationary sources of energy; it doesn't consider transportation efficiency. Funny you should ask about that.

"Moving Cooler: Transportation Strategies to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions"

At the behest of, among others, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the American Public Transportation Association, NRDC, the EPA, and Shell Oil, Cambridge Systematics has produced a comprehensive accounting of policy options for reducing transportation emissions. The top-line result:

As you can see, the maximally aggressive policy portfolio described by Cambridge could reduce GHG emissions almost 25% by 2050. That portfolio would cost a great deal, but it would save a great deal as well. Savings would exceed costs between 2015 and 2020:

Importantly, the study finds most big emission reductions not in fuel efficiency, but in pricing policies (tolls, congestion fees, pay-per-mile insurance) and land-use changes.

That's another 11 percent to add to McKinsey's 2020 reductions, bringing us to 38 percent -- well above ACES targets, closing in on IPCC targets, at net positive savings. So much for miserable consumers shivering in the cold.

If we put our minds to it, we have the means and the opportunities to substantially reduce emissions while strengthening the economy. The early push on efficiency will give us much-needed breathing room to scale up new, clean sources. The path we need to follow is clear, and it leads to greater prosperity, health, and sustainability. That is good news.

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‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

As the earth warms, the melting of the earth’s two massive ice sheets—Antarctica and Greenland—could raise sea level enormously. If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt, it would raise sea level 7 meters (23 feet). Melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would raise sea level 5 meters (16 feet). But even just partial melting of these ice sheets will have a dramatic effect on sea level rise. Senior scientists are noting that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections of sea level rise during this century of 18 to 59 centimeters are already obsolete and that a rise of 2 meters during this time is within range.

As I note in Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, assessing the prospects for the Greenland ice sheet begins with looking at the warming of the Arctic region. A 2005 study, conducted by the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) team, an international group of 300 scientists, concluded that the Arctic is warming almost twice as fast as the rest of the planet. It found that in the regions surrounding the Arctic, including Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia, winter temperatures have already climbed by 3-4 degrees Celsius (4–7 degrees Fahrenheit) over the last half-century.

In testimony before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, an Inuit speaking on behalf of the 155,000 Inuits who live in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and the Russian Federation, described their struggle to survive in the fast-changing Arctic climate as “a snapshot of what is happening to the planet.” She called the warming of the Arctic “a defining event in the history of this planet.”

The ACIA report described how the retreat of the sea ice has devastating consequences for polar bears, whose very survival may be at stake. A subsequent report indicated that polar bears, struggling to survive, are turning to cannibalism. Also threatened are ice-dwelling seals, a basic food source for the Inuit.

Since this 2005 report, there is new evidence that the problem is worse than previously thought. A team of scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the National Center for Atmospheric Research concluded that the ice is melting much faster than climate models had predicted. They found that from 1979 to 2006 the summer sea ice shrinkage accelerated to 9.1 percent a decade. In 2007, Arctic sea ice shrank some 20 percent below the previous record set in 2005. This suggests that the sea could be ice-free well before 2050, the earliest date projected by the IPCC in its 2007 report. Some scientists now think that the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in the summer by 2030, if not earlier. Arctic scientist Julienne Stroeve observed that shrinking Arctic sea ice may have reached “a tipping point that could trigger a cascade of climate change reaching into Earth’s temperate regions.”

Scientists are concerned that “positive feedback loops” may be starting to kick in. This term refers to a situation where a trend already under way begins to reinforce itself. Two of these potential feedback mechanisms are of particular concern to scientists. The first, in the Arctic, is the albedo effect. When incoming sunlight strikes the ice in the Arctic Ocean, up to 70 percent of it is reflected back into space. Only 30 percent is absorbed as heat. As the Arctic sea ice melts, however, and the incoming sunlight hits the much darker open water, only 6 percent is reflected back into space and 94 percent is converted into heat. This may account for the accelerating shrinkage of the Arctic sea ice and the rising regional temperature that directly affects the Greenland ice sheet.

If all the ice in the Arctic Ocean melts, it will not affect sea level because the ice is already in the water. But it will lead to a much warmer Arctic region as more of the incoming sunlight is absorbed as heat. This is of particular concern because Greenland lies largely within the Arctic Circle. As the Arctic region warms, the island’s ice sheet—up to 1 mile thick in places—is beginning to melt.

The second positive feedback mechanism also has to do with ice melting. As an ice sheet’s surface begins to melt, some of the water filters down through cracks in the glacier, lubricating the surface between the glacier and the rock beneath it. This accelerates the glacial flow and the calving of icebergs into the surrounding ocean. The relatively warm water flowing through the glacier also carries surface heat deep inside the ice sheet far faster than would simple conduction.

Several recent studies report that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet is accelerating. A study published in Science in September 2006 reported that the rate of ice melt on the vast island has tripled over the last several years. In October 2006, a team of NASA scientists reported that the flow of glaciers into the sea was accelerating. Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said, “None of this has been predicted by numerical models, and therefore all projections of the contribution of Greenland to sea level [rise] are way below reality.”

At the other end of the earth, the 2-kilometer-thick Antarctic ice sheet, which covers a continent about twice the size of Australia and contains 70 percent of the world’s fresh water, is also beginning to melt. Ice shelves that extend from the continent into the surrounding seas are starting to break up at an alarming pace.

In May 2007, a team of scientists from NASA and the University of Colorado reported satellite data showing widespread snow-melt on the interior of the Antarctic ice sheet over an area the size of California. Konrad Steffen, one of the scientists involved, observed, “Antarctica has shown little to no warming in the recent past with the exception of the Antarctic Peninsula, but now large regions are showing the first signs of the impacts of warming.”

The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has analyzed the effect of a 10-meter rise in sea level, providing a sense of what the melting of the world’s largest ice sheets could mean. The IIED study begins by pointing out that 634 million people live along coasts at or below 10 meters above sea level, in what they call the Low Elevation Coastal Zone. This massive vulnerable group includes one eighth of the world’s urban population.

One of the countries most vulnerable is China, with 144 million potential climate refugees. India and Bangladesh are next, with 63 and 62 million respectively. Viet Nam has 43 million vulnerable people, and Indonesia, 42 million. Others in the top 10 include Japan with 30 million, Egypt with 26 million, and the United States with 23 million.

The world has never seen such a massive potential displacement of people. Some refugees could simply retreat to higher ground within their own country. Others—facing extreme crowding in the interior regions of their homeland—would seek refuge elsewhere. Bangladesh, already one of the world’s most densely populated countries, would face a far greater concentration: in effect, 62 million of its people would be forced to move in with the 97 million living on higher ground.

Not only would some of the world’s largest cities, such as Shanghai, Kolkata, London, and New York, be partly or entirely inundated, but vast areas of productive farmland would also be lost. The rice-growing river deltas and floodplains of Asia would be covered with salt water, depriving Asia of part of its food supply.

In the end, the question is whether governments are strong enough to withstand the political and economic stress of relocating large numbers of people while suffering losses of housing and industrial facilities. The relocation is not only an internal matter, as a large share of the displaced people will want to move to other countries. Can governments withstand these stresses, or will more and more states fail?

#     #     #

Adapted from Chapter 3, “Rising Temperatures and Rising Seas ,” in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008), available for free downloading and purchase at www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB3/index.htm.

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This is the second dispatch by Population Action International from global climate change talks in Bonn, Germany.  Read the first.

A Bangladeshi woman searches for drinking water after a cyclone.Photo: Abir Abdullah/OxfamOne of the under-reported issues about climate change is its dramatic affect on women.  A side event I attended this afternoon, organized by the Global Gender and Climate Alliance (GGCA), included speakers from all around the world, representing men, women, government agencies, NGOs, North and South. But their messages were unified: women’s historic disadvantages -- limited access to resources, restricted rights, under-representation in decision making -- have made them disproportionately vulnerable to climate change impacts.

Women make up 70 percent of the world’s poorest people, pointed out Sirkka Haunia, Finland’s chief negotiator. More women die in weather-related natural disasters.

“Seventy percent of subsistence farmers in my country are women,” said William Kojo Agyemang-Bonsu, Ghana’s chief negotiator. “When climate changes rainfall patterns, they will be the ones who will be most negatively affected.”  

There is no quick fix to overcoming climate change’s sexist tendencies. As several in the meeting pointed out, it is akin to a running a marathon or climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. “It’s a sad state of affairs when only 16 percent of the scientists in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are women,” said a female member of the IPCC, the body charged with assessing the state of climate change science for policymakers. 

But they are not just victims, the panelists pointed out. “Women everywhere in the world possess unique knowledge and skill, and are active agents of change,” said Lorena Aguilar of the World Conservation Union.  According to Khamarunga Banda, of ENERGIA in South Africa, “Women make the majority of choices about individual lifestyles and are the ones who change ‘business as usual’ -- so they will need to be central figures in reducing energy use and switching to cleaner sources of fuel.”  Building on these ideas, the GGCA’s strategy is to ensure that gender dimensions of climate challenges and solutions find a place in the text of the next climate agreement.

My organization, Population Action International, embraces the idea of greater gender equity leading to better and more lasting climate change solutions. By meeting women's needs -- including needs for adequate reproductive-health and family-planning services -- we can improve the health and well-being of women and families, increasing resilience in the face of climate change and putting the breaks on population growth that is associated with rising greenhouse-gas emissions.

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President Evo Morales of Bolivia never shies away from a scuffle. He was elected as Bolivia's first indigenous president after toppling the previous government with massive street protests, and he has since legalized the coca leaf, nationalized the mines, and tossed out the U.S. ambassador.

Bolivian President Evo Morales makes an offering to the "Pachamama" (The Mother Earth) during a ritual at the sacred Aymara site of Tiwanaku, Bolivia. Morales has called for rich nations to take on the problem of global warming, noting that the worst effects fall on poor nations.Photo: Noah Friedman-RudovskyThe one-time coca farmer and llama herder is now wading into the ring of global climate negotiations to embark on his grandest crusade to date. His twenty-point list of demands on international climate policy represents the toughest line taken by any national leader, including a call for developed countries to contribute one percent of GDP -- close to $700 billion per year -- to a compensatory adaptation fund for poor and vulnerable nations.

"Western development has created a deathly wound to our Pachamama," says Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca, using the Aymara term for Mother Earth. "Industrialized countries need to assume their responsibilities."

If the United States agreed to finance Bolivia's proposal based on its 2008 GDP, it would owe roughly $146 billion -- over 11,000 times more than America spent on international adaptation in the 2008 fiscal year.

It's just the kind of uphill battle that the Bolivian government likes best.

"We think even this figure is small," says Juan Pablo Ramos, Vice-Minister of the Environment, "when we consider the $700 billion bailout for the U.S. financial crisis."

Bolivia's case rests on an argument that is rapidly gaining ground in poor countries -- that climate change must be addressed as a fundamental threat to development. Economic losses that can ultimately be traced back to industrialized nations' carbon emissions, they maintain, must be compensated with the same urgency that these countries have discovered in confronting their own financial crises.

Instead of talking about the ecological footprint of Bolivian development, Ramos is concerned with "the ecological footprint on our development" -- and worries that his country is getting squashed.

Gisela Ulloa, coordinator of Bolivia's Clean Development Office, says that the nation has "lost a large percentage of GDP in the last couple of years from climatic events" that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has linked to global warming, including flooding disasters in its Amazonian lowlands and the melting of Andean glaciers critical to water supply. Adaptation funding, in Bolivia's view, should address both the costs of these present-day damages and the opportunity costs of foregoing Western style industrialization.

This North-South perception gap about the nature of the threat posed by climate change is widely unrecognized by government and environmental leaders in developed nations.

"In the industrialized countries, climate change is seen as an environmental issue and not a development issue," says Adil Najam, lead author of the sustainable development section of the 2007 IPCC assessment. "For most of the people of the world, it is and will remain a development challenge."

The Bolivian government believes that it can shift the very framework of the global debate on climate change. The nation's "fundamental strategy," says Ramos, is to develop third-world block positions at Copenhagen and beyond to redefine the world's approach to climate policy. At treaty negotiations this April in Bonn, Bolivia had gathered a trio of leftist Latin American allies to demand compensation for the "climate debt" -- Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Honduras.

Global environmental institutions, he argues, should see their primary obligation as serving the world's poorest nations, who contributed least to the problem and whose chances for development face profound environmental barriers.

The international approach that Bolivia envisions would start with a greater emphasis on adaptation, which they say is the primary challenge facing third-world states. It would reject market mechanisms, which Bolivia claims reward polluters rather than victims of climate change, in favor of aid to developing countries. Governments could access these funds through streamlined procedures instead of submitting formal proposals to the Global Environment Facility, a process that often takes years.

For their part, industrialized nations would cut carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2020 and 90 percent by 2050. They would eliminate all subsidies for fossil fuels, end patents on green technologies, and directly finance avoided deforestation in the poor world.

"Radical measures are needed to produce massive results," says Vice-Minister Ramos.

Bolivia is facing long odds. The climate adaptation financing proposals Bolivia's leaders want are not only exponentially greater than what Western governments are currently paying, they're well beyond the range of what Western NGOs are recommending. Oxfam, for example, has issued an influential report calling for rich countries to spend $50 billion per year on adaptation - almost fourteen times less than the Bolivian proposal.

Heavy rains caused major flooding in Bolivia in 2007 and 2008, where large portions of the country, like the Beni region, were under water for months. President Evo Morales has called on wealthy nations to shoulder the burden for global warming.Photo by Noah Friedman-RudovskyBolivia's emphasis on the poorest nations, exemplified by its demand to restructure the Clean Development Mechanism to serve least developed states rather than industrializing giants, is also unlikely to be taken kindly by developing world heavyweights such as China, India and Brazil.

All told, Adil Najam isn't holding his breath for a third-world climate policy revolution.

"Part of me wishes that was going to happen, but it ain't going to," he says. "Wake me up when it does."

Nevertheless, the gridlock on adaptation financing has recently given signs of easing. Industrialized nations have pledged to include adaptation assistance in the Copenhagen climate treaty, and U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern has called for "substantial funds" for adaptation in the developing world to be incorporated in a U.S. cap-and-trade bill. Two of the leading climate proposals in the last Congress, the Lieberman-Warner and Markey bills, called for roughly $1 billion and $2-2.5 billion per year, respectively, for adaptation assistance.

This range would represent an increase on the order of a hundredfold in U.S. support for adaptation -- though still about ten times less than Oxfam recommends, and a hundred times less than Bolivia demands.

Adele Morris, an expert on climate change economics at the Brookings Institution, is concerned that a radical stand on financing on could endanger the prospects of a new treaty.

"The challenge will be getting a consensus in Copenhagen that's also ratifiable in Congress," she says. "You would hate to see the U.S.' ability to reach agreement torpedoed by overly ambitious demands from Bolivia."

An official in Bolivia's National Climate Change Program indicates that the country is likely to sign any agreement that emerges from Copenhagen. But the government insists that the current debate on adaptation funding amounts to shifting deck chairs on the Titanic. At the Poznan negotiations last December, delegates from rich and poor nations stalked out unable to reach agreement over a single percentage point in the rate of proceeds from global carbon markets that would be dedicated to adaptation.

"We were fighting for around $80 million for so many countries, but that's not going to save Tuvalu," says Gisela Ulloa, who represented Bolivia as a delegate. "It was a disaster. It was almost a waste of time."

Bolivia is convinced that this can only be resolved when developed nations fundamentally change their understanding of the role of adaptation. And until this occurs, Bolivian officials promise that we'll be hearing a whole lot more from them.

Bolivian officials says they will form a coalition of underdogs, including indigenous groups, social movements, and the world's most vulnerable states, into a pack so large that their case can no longer be denied.

"We are going to make our point more forcefully in the coming months," says Juan Pablo Ramos. "So that it is not an isolated voice, but a global demand of various nations and various peoples that eventually becomes a requirement."

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Since the nation is about to launch into a long debate about the costs of climate action versus the cost of inaction, here is an overview of the major cost analyses of global climate action.

In its definitive 2007 synthesis report of the scientific literature, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [PDF] concluded:

So global GDP drops by under 0.12 percent per year -- about one tenth of a penny on the dollar -- even in the 445 ppm CO2-eq case (through 2050, see Table SPM.7). And this is for stabilization at 445 ppm CO2-eq, which is stabilization at 350 ppm CO2 (see Table SPM.6).

And that has a very good chance of averting the incalculable cost of catastrophic global warming impacts to the next 50 generations, which means the cost of action is far, far less than the cost of inaction.

The IPCC's conclusion -- and every single word in the report -- was signed off on by 130 nations including China and the Bush Administration. Nor is this an especially controversial conclusion, at least among the few groups that have done comprehensive global economic and energy modeling:

How can the world's leading governments and scientific experts and McKinsey and the traditionally conservative International Energy Agency agree that we can avoid catastrophe for such a small cost?

Because that's what the scientific and economic literature -- and real-world experience -- says. The IPCC summary report, which is, after all, primarily a literature review, notes:

In fact, the bottom up studies -- the ones that look technology by technology, which I believe are more credible -- have even better news:

Wow! A 20 percent reduction in global emissions might be possible in a quarter century with net economic benefits!

The technology-by-technology cost-curve from McKinsey demonstrates this finding more concretely. Whereas the IPCC merely says that 450 ppm could be achieved for a total GDP reduction of <3 percent in 2030 (the cumulative impact of the <0.12 percent of GDP per year cost), McKinsey believes it could be even less costly:

I want to be clear here that stabilizing at 445 ppm CO2-eq does require a significant annual investment, as the IEA analysis shows. The IEA puts the investment at $45 trillion, which sounds like an unimaginably large amount of money -- but spread over more than four decades and compared to the world's total wealth during that time, it is literally a drop in the bucket -- 1.1 percent or one part in 90 of the world's total wealth.

Indeed, the IEA notes that one reason the dollar value of the investment is so high is "in part due to the declining value of the dollar." [Not to self: How diabolical of President Bush -- by weakening our economy he increased the total dollar cost of action on climate, thus encouraging inaction!]

And while the additional investments seem high, "they do not represent net costs." They are not a pure negative hit to global GDP. That's because "technology investments in energy efficiency" and many low-carbon power sources "reduce fuel requirements." In all the scenarios the IEA considers,

But don't we need new technologies? Of course, but we don't need -- and can't afford -- to sit on our hands when we have so many cost-effective existing technologies. The IPCC finds:

Yes we need to do two things at once: aggressively deploy existing technology (with carbon prices and government standards) and aggressively finish developing and commercializing key technologies and systems that are in the pipeline. Anyone who argues for just doing the latter is disputing a very broad consensus -- and is neither pragmatic nor centrist.

McKinsey finds 70 percent of the total 2030 emissions reduction potential (below $60 a ton of CO2 equivalent) is "not dependent on new technology."

The report notes that "we have been fairly conservative in our assumptions about technological progress in these projections." For instance, the analysis largely ignores the potential of concentrated solar thermal electricity, which is a bit player for their analysis but which will probably be the single biggest supply side low carbon source in reality (see "Concentrated solar thermal power Solar Baseload -- a core climate solution").

[Yes, the IEA report does suggest we need major technology advances -- but that is mostly for cost reduction if the price of oil stays low, which even the IEA doesn't believe any more (see "IEA says oil will peak in 2020").]

So the bottom line is that the economic cost of action is low, whereas the cost of inaction is incalculably greater -- what exactly is the "price" of 5 feet of sea level rise in 2100 rising 6-12 inches a decade for centuries thereafter or the price of desertifying one third of the planet and losing all of the inland glaciers that provide a significant fraction of water to a billion people. Or the price of losing half the world's species. For details, see "An introduction to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water."

And this is without even adding in the various ancillary benefits such as reduced air pollution and averting the huge economic dislocations that are inevitable from peak.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

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This dispatch was filed from the ongoing U.N.-sponsored climate change talks in Bonn, Germany.

As expected, Sunday's speech by Todd Stern at the U.N. climate talks in Bonn created quite a stir.

Sitting in the rear of the hall, it was hard not to think back to the last time U.S. statements in a plenary hall provoked such a strong reaction -- when the U.S. delegation was loudly booed for blocking progress in Bali in 2007. This time the United States was cheered, and a wave of relief could be felt going through the room.

The first cheer came even before Stern had said a word. Perhaps it was a cheer of support, saying, "Ok, guy, don't screw this up." And for the most part, Stern delivered.

Within two sentences, the room seemed pleased. To applause, Stern remarked, "On behalf of President Obama and his entire team ... we are very glad to be back, we want to make up for lost time, and we are seized with the urgency of the task before us."

Next, in perhaps a preemptive signal to delegates around the room, Stern reassured delegates that there's a new boss calling the shots and U.S. delegates are on board with the new mandate. He said, "You will not hear anyone on my team cast doubt upon or downplay the threat of global climate change. The science is clear, and the threat is real. The facts on the ground are outstripping the worst case scenarios. The costs of inaction -- or inadequate actions -- are unacceptable."

Affirming a commitment to reach an ambitious agreement in Copenhagen, Stern then went on to outline his five principles key to such an agreement: a long-term vision guided by the science; recognition that the United States is the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases (cheers again!) and must be a part of the global solution; the need for a global response; the need for significant funds to flow to developing countries to support their efforts to reduce global warming pollution and adapt to climate change that cannot be avoided; and the need for an agreement that can actually enter into force with all countries involved.

Sure, there are specifics to quibble with in his speech (including the reiterated target of returning U.S. emissions to roughly 15 percent below current levels by 2020, a target that must be strengthened to match the urgent calls of the science), but there will be a time and place for that (though soon, to be sure). For now, it was a day to savor the change in the air.

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New Year's Day is not, I suppose, everyone's idea of the best time to receive a sobering message. But like it or not, this year it happened to me.

The message that popped into my inbox, unannounced and unexpected, would have brought even the most hungover dreamer smartly back to reality. "Today," it opened uncompromisingly, "is arguably the first day of the most important year in human history."

That "arguably" signaled the author's nationality. And being a Brit like me, he could not leave it at that, adding immediately: "I dislike the grandiose, so the previous sentence was written reluctantly." But he was not deterred for long, explaining that the international conference to set a new treaty to combat climate change, set for December in Copenhagen, "will do more to shape human destiny for longer" than any previous meeting in the history of the world.

The authorship commanded attention. Prof. Tom Burke served as one of the closest advisers to three successive British environment ministers in the 1990s, and remains one of Europe's most respected green commentators. Once perhaps Friends of the Earth UK's most effective leader, he now advises Rio Tinto -- a nice irony, since his first big campaign was against plans by the company to strip mine in a Welsh national park. But it's fair to say that the mining multinational has changed much more than he has.

I digress... The point is that Tom sat down bright and early on New Year's morning to share his evaluation of the year with a few friends. The other addressees included: John Podesta, at that time the head of Barack Obama's transition team; John Ashton, Britain's Climate ambassador; Sir Jeremy Greenstock, a former U.K. ambassador to the United Nations; and a host of senior government officials in Europe and the United States.

The reason for 2009's unique importance, he explained, is that "climate change is forever. Terrible though the consequences of war and recession are, they pass. But the nature of the climate is such that the future cannot redeem today's mistakes."

He added; "We have one chance to reach a political agreement to reduce carbon emissions in time to stay safe. This is the year in which we take that chance."

Tom urged us to pass on his e-mail. I was so impressed that I persuaded the editor of the Independent on Sunday, for which I work as environment editor, to run an op-ed article adapted from it. It struck quite a chord with our readers.

In a sense, though, Tom's year truly started at the weekend, for on Sunday the countdown to Copenhagen began in earnest. Representatives of the world's nations are in Bonn to try to hammer out the shape of the deal to be put on the table in Copenhagen late this year. They will have to cover a lot of ground in their two weeks' talks, because under the rules of the negotiations, a draft treaty has to be ready to go out to governments by the beginning of June.

Yvo de Boer, the phlegmatic Dutchman in charge of the negotiations, is already concerned that time is running out. "Worrying", he replied the other day when asked to describe the state of play. "I'm not concerned about willingness to get the job done, I'm concerned by the amount of time left."

That willingness has, of course, been transformed by the arrival of Barack Obama in the White House and by what -- on this side of the Atlantic at least -- is the new administration's unexpected degree of commitment. Even de Boer remarks on the Obama team's "huge enthusiasm to get moving on the issue."

But that's part of the problem. Europe has been waiting -- waiting for Obama. And while the continent's leaders have been treading water, the current has been carrying them steadily backwards. Europe may still have the world's most ambitious targets for reducing emissions by the crucial date of 2020 -- 20 percent of 1990 levels, rising to 30 percent if other rich nations join in -- but it has been steadily watering down its commitment since the global financial crisis took hold. Having been out in front for so long, Europe seems to be preparing to cede the leadership to the United States, instead of vying with it to take the action so urgently needed.

Tom Burke -- who feared even at the beginning of the year that success at Copenhagen would be "elusive" -- is even more concerned nearly three months later. But he feels that the most important moment will come later this week, at the G-20 summit in London. The key will be, he says, whether the G-20 leaders will take "the unique opportunity" of the unprecedented economic stimulus packages their nations have enacted to tackle climate change and build green economies.

And he fears that if they fail to devote at least half of the money to the task "we will be on a downward slope for the rest of the year".

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In the last two years, our scientific understanding of business-as-usual projections for global warming has changed dramatically (see here and here). Yet, much of the U.S. public -- especially conservatives -- remain in the dark about just how dire the situation is (see here).

Why? Because the U.S. media is largely ignoring the story. Case in point: Where was the coverage of the Copenhagen Climate Science Congress, attended by 2000 scientists, which concluded with this Key Message #1:

What is the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectory? That would be A1F1 (the red dotted line in the figure below from figure SPM-3 of the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Synthesis Report):

The A1F1 scenario takes us to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide of 1000 ppm in 2100 -- otherwise known as the end of human civilization as we have known it. Actually it's worse than that. The 2001 IPCC report largely failed to model amplifying carbon cycle feedbacks. The 2007 IPCC report, which began to consider such feedbacks, warns that even averaging 11 GtC (billion metric tons of carbon) a year this century could take us to 1000 ppm (see here). The A1F1 scenario averages well above 15 GtC a year through 2100 as you can see from the figure on the left.

Energy Daily ($ub. req'd) notes of the U.S. media non-coverage of Copenhagen:

Great point -- though "ironically" isn't the right word. There is nothing ironic about this. It is cause and effect. The right word is "tragically."

Exceeding A1F1 probably means total planetary warming by 2100 compared to preindustrial levels of 5°C or more. I discuss the harsh impacts of such warming here.

West Coast Climate Equity notes:

A rise of mean global temperatures above 4 or 5 degrees Celsius would shift the atmosphere to pre-glacial/interglacial conditions, which dominated the Earth from about 34 million years ago (end-Eocene) (Zachos et al., 2008) http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7176/full/nature06588.html

That means ultimate sea level rise of 250 feet, with the best current projection being 5 feet by 2100 (see here), rising thereafter 10 to 20 inches a decade (or more) for centuries. Good luck adapting to that, next 50 generations.

Key Message #5 from the Congress is:

What is inexcusable is US media coverage and the blinkered conservative strategy of scientific denial -- what can only be described as a murder-suicide pact with the human race (see here).

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

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COPENHAGEN—Months before make-or-break climate negotiations, a conclave of scientists warned Tuesday that the impact of global warming was accelerating beyond a forecast made by U.N. experts two years ago.

Sea levels this century may rise several times higher than predictions made in 2007 that form the scientific foundation for policymakers today, the meeting heard.

In March 2007, the U.N.‘s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that global warming, if unchecked, would lead to a devastating amalgam of floods, drought, disease and extreme weather by the century end.

The world’s oceans would creep up 18 to 59 centimeters (7 to 23 inches), enough to wipe out several small island nations and wreak havoc for tens of millions living in low-lying deltas in east Asia, the Indian subcontinent and Africa.

But a new study, presented at the Copenhagen meeting on Tuesday, factored in likely water runoff from disintegrating glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica, and found the rise could be much higher.

The IPCC estimate had been based largely on the expansion of oceans from higher temperatures, rather than meltwater and the impact of glaciers tumbling into the sea.

Using the new model, “we get a range of sea level rise by 2100 between 75 and 190 centimeters when we apply the IPCC’s temperature scenarios for the future,” said climate expert Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Even if the world manages to dramatically cut the emission of greenhouse gases driving global warming, the “best estimate” is about one meter (3.25 feet), he said.

“A few years ago, those of us who talked about the impact of the ice sheets were seen as extremists. Today it is recognized as the central issue,” said glaciologist Eric Rignot of the University of California at Irvine.

“The world has very little time,” IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri told the meeting after the new findings were presented.

Participants also spoke out about fears that greenhouse gases—mainly emissions from oil, gas and coal—could trigger tipping points that would be nearly impossible to reverse.

The shrinking of the Arctic ice cap, and the release of billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases trapped in melting permafrost are two such “positive feedbacks” that could become both cause and consequence of global warming.

“We need to look at what is a ‘reasonable worst case’ in the lifetime of people alive today,” said John Ashton, Britain’s top climate negotiator, noting even rich nations had yet to take such scenarios seriously.

“A sea level rise of one or two meters would not just be damaging for China, it would be an absolute catastrophe. And what is catastrophic for China is catastrophic for the world,” he said.

More than 2,000 researchers from 80 countries responded to the open invitation to present their findings, which were then vetted by a panel of climate experts, many of them top figures in the IPCC.

“I and a lot of scientists see this meeting as an opportunity to update the science that has come out since the last IPCC report,” said William Howard, a researcher from the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia.

“The huge response from scientists comes from a sense of urgency, but also a sense of frustration,” said Katherine Richardson, head of the Danish government’s Commission on Climate Change Policy.

“Most of us have been trained as scientists to not get our hands dirty by talking to politicians. But we now realize that what we are dealing with is so complicated and urgent that we have to help to make sure the results are understood,” she told AFP.

Richardson said the 2007 IPCC report, called the Fourth Assessment Report, was an invaluable document but it would be years out of date when negotiators convene in Copenhagen in December to hammer out a global climate treaty.

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