According to a new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), global warming's effects could be much worse than predicted without rapid and decisive action.  The study, published in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate says climate change will be about twice as severe as estimated six years ago or even worse.

The study used the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model, a comprehensive computer simulation of global economic activity and climate processes developed by the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change since the early 1990s.  New research involved 400 runs of the model with slight variations to each so that each run has an equal chance of being correct based on current observations and knowledge.  The MIT model is unique as it interactively includes detailed treatment of possible human activities, such as economic growth, with its associated energy use, in different countries. 

To illustrate the findings of their model, MIT researchers created a pair of 'roulette wheels.' The wheel on the right depicts their estimate of the range of probability of potential global temperature change over the next 100 years if no policy change is enacted on curbing greenhouse gas emissions. The wheel on the left assumes that aggressive policy is enacted. (Image courtesy / MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change)

MIT research indicates that the earth's surface temperature could rise 9.3 degrees F (5.2 degrees C) by 2100, with a 90 percent probability range of 3.5 to 7.4 degrees.  Scientists compared this to a 2003 study that projected a median increase of 4.3 degrees F.  The difference is caused by several factors including improved economic modeling, new economic data, and possible masking of climate changes by the cooling effect of 20^th century volcanoes, and emissions of soot, that can add to the warming effect.

Study co-author, Ronald Prinn, co-director of the Joint Program and director of MIT's Center for Global Change Science, said without action, "there is significantly more risk than we previously estimated.  This increases the urgency for significant policy change."  Prinn went on to state that he believed that there is no way the world should take these risks as the model does not take into account a worst-case scenario, such as what could happen if increase temperatures caused a large-scale melting of permafrost in the Arctic and the subsequent release of methane.

The MIT study was released just a day before U.S. President Barack Obama unveiled a new plan to regulate vehicle emissions to combat climate change.  The national policy is aimed at both increasing gas mileage and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions for all new cars and trucks sold in the U.S.  Automakers will have to dramatically improve the efficiency of cars and light trucks by 2016.  The move is expected to save 1.8 billion barrels of oil, equivalent to taking 68 million cars of the road in the U.S. for an entire year.  While buying a new car will be more expensive under the new regulations-up by $600 per vehicle-the savings in fuel purchases should cancel out the costs, as drivers will have to buy less fuel over the car's lifetime.  Environmentalists applauded Obama's move; Sierra Club director, Carl Pope, said the new standards represent "one of the most significant efforts undertaken by any president, ever, to end our addiction to oil and seriously slash our global warming emissions."  The proposed plan will also instruct the EPA to regulate car exhaust emissions for the first time.

Unfortunately, opinion polls still show that fighting global warming and energy waste is still a low priority for most Americans despite the President's green agenda.  But there is some good news: U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels declined by 2.8 percent in 2008, from 5,967 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MMTCO2) in 2007 to 5,802 MMICO2 in 2008, according to a preliminary report by the Energy Information Administration (EIA).  Factors that contributed to the decline include record-high gasoline and diesel prices in 2008 and a decline in economic activity and consumer income during the second half of the year.  Total U.S. energy consumption in 2008 fell by 2.2 percent.

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