Scripps Researchers Outline Strategy to Limit Global Warming

National Science Foundation (NSF) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Scripps Homepage ScrippsNews Home - Fulfilling Copenhagen Accord will require variety of efforts ranging from 'Herculean' to the readily actionable, scientists say April 30, 2010 By Robert Monroe Scripps climate and atmospheric scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan (gray shirt) looks on as Hafeez Rehman explains new clean-burning cookware and lanterns to rural villagers in India. Ramanathan and Rehman are co-principal investigators in Project Surya, a study of atmospheric changes that take place when black carbon pollution is removed. Major greenhouse gas-emitting countries agreed in December climate talks held in Copenhagen that substantial action is required to limit the increase of global average temperature to less than 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F). In a paper appearing May 3 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Veerabhadran Ramanathan and Yangyang Xu, climate researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, have identified three avenues by which those countries can avoid reaching the warming threshold, a point beyond which many scientists believe climate change will present unmanageable negative consequences for society. 'Without an integrated approach that combines CO2 emission reductions with reductions in other climate warmers and climate-neutral air-pollution laws, we are certain to pass the 2-degree C and likely reach a 4 degree C threshold during this century,' said Ramanathan.