May 24, 2006, The Age

The world could get six degrees hotter over the next century, scientists have told the (Australian)Federal Government, warning that previous predictions dramatically underestimate the extent to which climate change will raise temperatures. A report for the federal Environment Department said there was a greater risk that global warming could now exceed earlier predictions of a 1.4 to 5.8 degrees rise in temperatures by 2100. "The impacts of a changing climate are beginning to emerge," the report said, adding that evidence of warming, such as more common high temperature extremes, was becoming easier to observe. The report said its findings were based on new research done since the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projections in 2001.

The report downgraded the long-term cooling effect of aerosol particles in the atmosphere, and found melting snow and ice would cut the reflectivity of the earth's surface and add to rising temperatures. Some of the most dramatic effects were predicted in the Arctic Ocean, which was now projected to become almost ice-free in summer later this century. At the other end of the globe, the Antarctic peninsula was warming strongly, leading to a rapid loss of ice shelves along the coast and speeding up glaciers.

Meanwhile, US research suggests that existing predictions for temperature rises are inaccurate and will have to be revised upwards by several degrees by the year 3000. New research at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory suggests that as carbon dioxide emissions heat the globe, hotter oceans and soils will release stored carbon dioxide, raising the thermostat an extra notch. Ecologist John Harte and biogeochemist Margaret Torn predict that if humans double the carbon dioxide level, more carbon dioxide will be released naturally, which in turn will push global temperatures up between 2.9 and 11 degrees.

The flaw came to light during a study of the effects of global surface temperatures on carbon dioxide levels. Scientists have long known that greenhouse gases raise temperatures by insulating the planet. But less well known is that the warmer it gets, the more carbon dioxide is released by soil and oceans.

REUTERS, GUARDIAN, KRT

amazing how alarmist and incomptent these scientists are, isn't it? :-)