Kristof: Global Warming Outstrips Projections

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof looked at global warming science last week, and found it looking ominous:

“Over and over again, we’re finding that models correctly predict the patterns of change but understate their magnitude,” notes Jay Gulledge, a senior scientist at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

Kristof's column focused on four specific items leading to this conclusion:

Arctic sea ice thickness has reached a new low--and there is still more than a month of the normal melting season left to go. (More info on this available from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Sea ice extent at the moment is a whopping 16% below its level on the same day in 2005, when the previous record low was set.)

Annual ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica now is 125 billion tons, and growing.

Actual sea level rise is following the upper limits of previous projections, and is now forecast to be 0.5 to 1.4 meters by 2100.

Glaciers are melting more quickly than anticipated.

In other words (my words, not Kristof's), the imperative for reducing global warming pollution and for carbon-free energy technologies like wind and solar power continues to grow.

Regards,
Tom