Two degrees warming a 'prescription for disaster' says top climate scientist James Hansen

1 meter (metre) = 3.2808399 ft

http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/paris-2015-two-degrees-warming-a-prescription-for-disaster-says-top-climate-scientist-james-hansen-20150504-ggu33w.html

Peter Hannam
May 5, 2015

The aim to limit global warming to two degrees of pre-industrial levels is "crazy" and "a prescription for disaster", according to a long-time NASA climate scientist.

The paleo-climate record shows sea-levels were six to eight metres (19 to 26 feet) higher than current levels when global temperatures were less than two degrees warmer than they are now, Professor James Hansen, formerly head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and now at Columbia University in New York, said.

"It's crazy to think that 2 degrees celsius is a safe limit," Professor Hansen told RN Breakfast on ABC Radio on Tuesday, adding that this would lock in several metres of sea-level rise by the middle of the century,

New satellite data over the past decade indicate that the ice sheets are disintegrating faster than had been modelled by climate scientists.

"The ice sheets are losing mass faster and faster, with a doubling time of about 10 years," Professor Hansen said. "If that continues, we would get sea-level rises of several metres by 40-50 years."

"The consequences are almost unthinkable. It would mean that all coastal cities would become dysfunctional," he told ABC Radio.

Even the goal of limiting warming by two degrees is looking like it is unlikely to be met. A study out this week by Lord Nicholas Stern and colleagues found that the commitment and likely pledges by nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 fall about half short of the reductions needed to restrict the two-degree increase on pre-industrial levels.

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The first three months of 2015 - and the past 12 months - were also the hottest in 136 years of data, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said last month.

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