In his keynote address at the NSF-funded Antarctic Peninsula Climate Variability conference, Jonathan Overpeck, a Hamilton graduate and a climate researcher at the University of Arizona, says new computer simulations suggest that global warming this century will be about four times greater than what the planet experienced in the 1900s.
"There's little doubt the Earth is warming up," Overpeck, director of the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, told climate scientists from 11 nations in a keynote address last week at Hamilton College. "The big question is if that warming is global."
According to a new study by Overpeck and his team of scientists, the Earth's average temperature will rise about 10 degrees before the year 2100. He said if that trend continues, it likely will have a devastating affect on the planet.
"I've been studying climate change for 23 years, and I'm convinced if we don't stop global warming, we're going to mess up this Earth in a way that we've never seen before," Overpeck said.
He said last year was the second-warmest on record globally. It came close on the heels of the world's warmest year on record, in 1998. Overpeck said enough evidence exists to suggest global warming is a real danger.
