Science News is reporting on another climate related study [original article here-subs required] from the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco:
In a presentation today to the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, JPL Senior Research Scientist Hartmut Aumann outlined the results of a study based on five years of data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft. The AIRS data were used to observe certain types of tropical clouds [Deep Convective Clouds (DCC)--JR] linked with severe storms, torrential rain and hail. The instrument typically detects about 6,000 of these clouds each day. Aumann and his team found a strong correlation between the frequency of these clouds and seasonal variations in the average sea surface temperature of the tropical oceans.
For every degree Centigrade (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in average ocean surface temperature, the team observed a 45-percent increase in the frequency of the very high clouds. At the present rate of global warming of 0.13 degrees Celsius (0.23 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade, the team inferred the frequency of these storms can be expected to increase by six percent per decade. [emphasis--JR]
Aumann said the results of his study, published recently in Geophysical Research Letters, are consistent with another NASA-funded study by Frank Wentz and colleagues in 2005. That study found an increase in the global rain rate of 1.5 percent per decade over 18 years, a value that is about five times higher than the value estimated by climate models that were used in the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. [emphasis--JR]
It has become clear that the latest IPCC report has underestimated the rate of climate change, which means that people who cite the report as justification for their policy decisions are probably proposing inadequate solutions to the problem of Climaticide. It is vitally important that government leaders get the latest information so that they can develop and implement policies that are actually strong enough to deal with the crisis.
Tropical Storm Ophelia, September 2005
Crossposted at Climaticide Chronicles