hansen suggests ipcc far too cautious


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070825.MELTING25/TPStory/Environment
"But a study led by James Hansen, the head of the climate science
program at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard
Institute for Space Studies in New York and a professor at Columbia
University, suggests that current estimates for how high the seas
could rise are way off the mark - and that in the next 100 years
melting ice could sink cities in the United States to Bangladesh.

"If we follow 'business-as-usual' growth of greenhouse gas emissions,"
he writes in an e-mail interview, "I think that we will lock in a
guaranteed sea-level rise of several metres, which, frankly, means
that all hell is going to break loose." "
....
"So why the radical discrepancies between Prof. Hansen's predictions
and those of the IPCC? Certain positive feedback effects, as well as
recent data on the melting of the Greenland ice ***, were not
included in the IPCC's report. "Because of the cumbersome IPCC review
process, they exclude recent information," Prof. Hansen says, "so they
are very handicapped." "
....
"I believe there is pressure on scientists to be conservative. Caveats
are essential to science. They are born in skepticism, and skepticism
is at the heart of the scientific method and discovery," he wrote in
New Scientist magazine last month. "However, in a case such as
ice-*** instability and sea-level rise, excessive caution also holds
dangers. 'Scientific reticence' can hinder communication with the
public about the dangers of global warming. We may rue reticence if it
means no action is taken until it is too late to prevent future
disasters."


http://www.abelard.org/briefings/antarctica_melting_ice.php#glacier_melting
note the large number of positive feedbacks once ice begins to melt

regards

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