Current emissions may mean 4°C temperature hike before 2100

[nsane.forums]

This week, a climatology meeting is taking place at Oxford University that has a rather provocative title: 4 degrees & beyond. Most of the public policy discussions so far have focused on limiting the impact of climate change to somewhere in the neighborhood of 2°C, while many of the IPCC's projections have focused on the impact of doubling the preindustrial levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which they place at a bit above that figure. However, as the UN's climate conference in Copenhagen draws near, it's become increasingly clear that there is little appetite for placing any hard targets on emissions, which raises the specter that some of the IPCC's high-end scenarios may come to pass.

Speakers at the initial session of the meeting made the case that there are a number of reasons to think that some of the high-emissions scenarios, which could triple the preindustrial levels, might come to pass, and it's worth considering what the world would look like if they did.

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