Ten predictions about climate change that have come true

Now, I have to say I am looking for ten predictions that didn’t come true. Makes you wonder, because I can remember hearing a lot of crazy and wild speculative prophecies back in the 90’s about what was going to happen if we didn’t reign in all of the pollution that we were spewing out. Granted they have started to come true, I am curious as to what hasn’t happened according to Chicken Little.

 

 

Source: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article1984755.ece

From Times Online

 

June 25, 2007

Here are the hard facts about global warming that everyone should know, compiled for Times Online by internationally acclaimed writer, scientist and explorer Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers: Our changing climate and what it means for life on earth

By Tim Flannery

 

Background

·         The Weather Makers: Our Changing Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth

·         The Weather Makers: extract 1

·         The Weather Makers: extract 2

Background

·         £4bn to stop big drought killing heart of Australia

·         More hunger and hurricanes on the way

·         Darfur conflict warning of climate change peril

·         Help, I'm stuck in a climate change conundrum and trying to stay cool

·         When it comes to climate change, I'll take a small bet that Pascal was right

Ten predictions made by climate scientists that have come true (or are becoming true)

1.      That the Earth would warm as more CO2 was put into the atmosphere (Svante Arrhenius in 1893)

2.      That we'd begin to see noticable changes to Earth's climate by around 2000 (some IPCC scientists ).

3.      That sea-level would start rising

4.      That Earth's Ice would start melting rapidly (James Hanson)

5.      That hurricanes would increase in intensity (this one goes back to Alfred Russel Wallace in 1900)

6.      That species would start going extinct as a result of climate change.

7.      That Australia would start drying out (Hadley Centre scientists)

8.      That tropical diseases would increase

9.      That food crops would be adversely affected

10.  That the CO2 would begin to acidify the ocean

The ten biggest changes to the weather wrought by climate change

1.      Shorter winters

2.      Less runoff into dams and reservoirs in many regions of the world

3.      More violent and longer hurricanes

4.      Less chilly nights

5.      Less predictable seasonal conditions

6.      Less snow

7.      More heat waves

8.      Less rain in many regions at various seasons

9.      More severe storms in the North Sea and parts of the southern Ocean

10.  Generally warmer conditions

The ten places in the world / animals in the world most endangered by global warming

1.      The glorious Cape Botanic province in South Africa, particularly the succulent Karoo flora.

2.      Amphibians everywhere (a third of all species are already gravely endangered or extinct.

3.      Coral reefs

4.      Species on mountaintops (many populations are already extinct.

5.      The tundra

6.      The Arctic Ocean

7.      The Antarctic Peninsula

8.      Australia - where the drying trend is already precipitating a new wave of declines and extinctions.

9.      The Amazon, where drying will affect forests and rivers

10.  The boreal forests, here pest infestations are destroying vast areas of trees.

Tim Flannery is an internationally acclaimed writer, scientist and explorer. As a field zoologist he discovered and named more than thirty new species of mammals, including two tree-kangaroos. Sir David Attenborough described him as being ‘in the league of the all-time great explorers like Dr David Livingstone’. His latest book, The Weather Makers: Our changing climate and what it means for life on earth , is published in paperback by Penguin