Be afraid, be very afraid.
Via National Geographic:
A decline in ocean cloud cover projected in climate models points to more than 5.6°F (3°C) of global warming coming in this century, on the high end of past global warming estimates, warn climate scientists in a new study.
“This degree of warming would make large swaths of the tropics uninhabitable by humans and cause most forests at low and middle latitudes to change to something else,” says Steven Sherwood of Australia’s University of New South Wales, who led the study.
The changes, Sherwood says, would take Earth “back to the climate of the dinosaurs or worse, and in a geologically minuscule period of time—less than the lifetime of a single tree.”
Atmospheric scientists have long asked how high atmospheric temperatures will rise if greenhouse gases double. This “climate sensitivity” estimate has emerged as a key climate question, with estimates ranging from a low of about 2.7°F (1.5°C) to highs of more than 8°F (4.5°C) of warming in this century.
While estimates have gone up and down, carbon dioxide concentrations have increased to a level about 40 percent higher than the preindustrial average in the last century, largely due to the burning of fossil fuels.
HT: Real Science