A WARNING ON CLIMATE CHANGE
POLLUTION'S EFFECTS COULD BE SUDDEN, NAS REPORT SAYS

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A28650-2001Dec11¬Found=true

By Eric Pianin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 12, 2001; Page A11

[This only made page 11 (!!) of the Washington Post!]

While recent climate change studies have focused on the risks of a
gradual rise in the Earth's temperature, a new National Academy of
Sciences report has concluded that greenhouse gases and other
pollutants could trigger large, abrupt and potentially disastrous
climate changes.

Citing a wealth of paleontological evidence, historical observations
and computer modeling analyses reaching back hundreds of centuries,
researchers found evidence that, in some places, periods of gradual
changes were punctuated by sudden temperature spikes of about 10
degrees Celsius in only a decade.


Roughly half of the warming that has occurred in the northern part of
the Atlantic Ocean since the last ice age was achieved in only a
decade, the report said. That warming was accompanied by significant
climate changes across the globe, including flooding and drought, it
said. Since then, less dramatic climate changes have occurred,
affecting precipitation, hurricanes and the El Niqo events that have
disrupted temperatures in the tropical Pacific.

"Abrupt climate changes were especially common when the climate system
was being forced to change most rapidly," the study states. "Thus,
greenhouse warming and other human alterations of the earth system may
increase the possibility of large, abrupt, and unwelcome regional or
global climatic events."