Using ocean data collected by diving floats, U.S. climate scientists released a study Thursday that they said provides the "smoking gun" that ties manmade greenhouse gas emissions to global warming.
The researchers, some of them working for NASA and the Energy Department, went a step further, implicitly criticizing President Bush for not taking stronger action to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.
They said the findings confirm that computer models of climate change are on target and that global temperatures will rise 1 degree Fahrenheit this century, even if greenhouse gases are capped tomorrow.
If emissions instead continue to grow, as expected, things could spin “out of our control,” especially as ocean levels rise from melting Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the NASA-led scientists said. "The climate system could reach a point where large sea level change is practically impossible to avoid."
The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, is the latest to report growing certainty about global warming projections.
© 2005 MSNBC.com
Germana Canzi's COMMENT: Nobody has yet tried to calculate a monetary value for a large global sea level change. The damages could clearly be incalculable and far more costly than any of the solutions, and the technologies, currently at our disposal.
