Today's ToI front-page article: "Humans get 10 more years to save earth"

[sunson]

The Times of India today carried a news article today about a new research report titled Humans get 10 more years to save Earth. I've been tracking global warming related 'research' for quite a while and I definitely knew this is like one of those non-sensical trend analyses which are irrelevant for the long run - in the sense, its useful only for as long as we want to meet the deadline effectively. To give an analogy, its like saying the ship will sink with the tail first and then completely sink in 10 minutes afterwards. This is NOT a news that suddenly says "Whoa! the ship won't sink anymore". There is no doubt about it. If left unattended, the ship WILL sink.

The first thing I felt good about it was that atleast ToI didn't make it sound like "Alright, let's continue consuming at our usual insatiable rates. The planet can handle our consumption easily". But unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the case with the rest of the news agencies.

Secondly, I don't think this is such a big world-view changing news to be featured on the front-page. Like I said, there is no doubt about whether the ship is going to sink or not if left unattended. We only know we have more time to mend that hole IF we want to mend that hole.

Here is a very nicely written blog on Why climate change is so tricky to cover.

Like mentioned in the article above, firstly this research doesn't factor sub-surface temperatures. From my understanding, here's how I'd like to explain this article in plain english:

• Ice melts from Greenland, Arctic, Antarctic, etc.,.
  
• As a result of ice melt falling into the seas/oceans, the sea surface temperature tends to become 'cooler' since melt water is colder than the already existing ocean water.
  
• It will take 10 years before the ocean plays 'catch up' with this newly melted cold water
  
• The article doesn't say anything about greenhouse gases' effects reducing or that almighty has intervened to allow us to carry-on with our consumption

... and remember, Climate is a chaotic system. The actual paper only claimed to have 'improved' the method of predicting climate behaviour by factoring a new variable - Sea Surface Temperature. The article also clearly says how Sub Surface Temperature also needs to be factored in. In effect, I'd even go as far to say, the audience of this paper is merely academicians on how they've figured out a better way of predicting climate in 10-year cycles.

So, people: Please take this ToI article with a grain of salt. Remember: the sinking ship analogy.