Examples of such risks include crop yields which could decline gradually in response to global warming, and then lurch over a cliff and the possibility that swathes of Siberia might warm, releasing huge stocks of methane that lie locked up in the permafrost.
It points out that the 15% or so of the world's population living in high-income countries are responsible for half of the carbon dioxide (the principal greenhouse gas behind global warming) released by man-made sources.
Either way, the methane could have been produced ages ago, noted Mumma's colleague Geronimo Villanueva of Goddard, and been trapped in deep ice until warming released it.
It may be just in time as California is still dealing with wildfires elsewhere and, as global warming releases more C02 into the air, that causes more plants and flowers to release more pollen throughout the year.
Permafrost thaw could trigger what some have dubbed "catastrophic climate change," a cyclical process in which the earth's warming releases stored greenhouse gases, further warming the earth.
This testimony completely ignores the British government's 700-page Stern Review, widely regarded as the most definitive study so far of the economic impact of global warming, released on October 30, 2006 by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern.
And both droughts and floods are natural consequences of a warming world: droughts because it's hotter, floods because warm oceans release more water vapor.
Some snuff takers like to roll the snuff around for a few seconds pinched between the thumb and forefinger to help warm and release the aromatic oils in the snuff for a more flavorful experience.
It is thought that at 2-3C of global warming, which means 6-8C of Arctic warming, methane release from permafrost on land will be greatly increased.
Power-station exhaust can thus be purged of its CO2 by running it through an amine bath before it is vented, and the amine can be warmed to release the gas where it will do no harm.
