By the way, I'll further add that Greenpeace's survey of climate scientists, apart from being pretty out-of-date by now, was probably undermined by a lack of knowledge among most climate scientists of the nuances of infrared radiative transfer. That's probably not a shortcoming of the climate scientists in general - nobody would expect an expert in ocean circulation or El Nino dynamics to have the detailed aspects of infrared radiative transfer available on the tip of their tongue. But I suspect that if they had limited their survey to 30 or 40 climate scientists with specific expertise in radiative transfer, they probably would have found substantially fewer who would agree that a runaway greenhouse scenario is possible.
-Eric On Feb 15, 9:06 am, Tom Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > One could make an argument that the most troubling potential effect of > global warming is not sea level-rise or drought. The most toubling > potential effect of global warming is *more global warming*. > > Yet there seems to be little public awareness of this. The public > seems view global warming as a problem that can be dealt with later, > but this might not be true. > > "Greenpeace International polled 400 climate scientists during > December 1991 and January '92. The sample included all scientists > involved in the 1990 study of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate > Change, and others who have published on issues relevant to climate > change in `Science' or `Nature' during 1991. Scientists were asked > whether they thought there would be a point of no return at some time > in the future, if emissions continued at their present rate. By the > end of January 1992, 113 had replied, in the following way: probably - > 15 (13%), possibly - 36 (32%), probably not - 53 (47%). In other > words, 45% believe the runaway greenhouse effect to be possible. " > > http://archive.greenpeace.org/climate/database/records/zgpz0638.html > > "Runaway global warming" (RGW) is the best term I have found for this > (based on googling). Is there a better term? > > What is the status of RGW in the scientific community these days? It > is frige alarmist or mainstream? > > Is there any research that might sort out RGW, determine if its a real > probability, put a probability on it? > > What are the time frames for RGW? Perhaps it would play out over such > long time frames that it would not scare the public into action even > if the mainstream of scientists considered it probable. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
