"POTSDAM -- Germany's top climate researcher says he hopes he and his fellow scientists around the world have got it all wrong about global warming.
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, told Reuters he gets no pleasure at all in being a prophet of doom and hopes he and his colleagues have overlooked effects that could still arrest climate change.
'It would be wonderful if some mechanism that we haven't yet been able to understand could still have an impact and manage to stabilize global warming at a high level for a while,' he said in an interview in his institute's office outside Berlin.
'I would be delighted if it turns out that we haven't understood the system as well as we think we do and that we might get a 20- to 30-year 'breathing period' when global warming slows or is even halted,' the physics professor said.
But Schellnhuber, who advises German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European Union on climate change, said it was also possible scientists were erring in the opposite direction and underestimating the climate change dynamics."
Erik Kirschbaum reports for Reuters December 4, 2009.
See Also:
"Rising Partisanship Sharply Erodes U.S. Public's Belief in Global Warming" (ClimateWire)
"United Nations To Probe Climate E-Mail Leak" (AP)
"Group Promoting Climate Skepticism Has Extensive Ties To Exxon-Mobil" (Raw Story)
"Think Again: A Climate of Conspiracy" (Center for American Progress)
"US Business Leaders Counter Critics on Climate" (AFP)
"A Climate Scientist on 'Data Mining' for Dirt" (Dot Earth)
"Critic of 'Climate Oligarchy' Defends Case for CO2-Driven Warming" (Dot Earth)
"Obama Science Advisers Grilled Over Hacked E-Mails" (AP)
"Hacked Climate Emails Called a 'Smear Campaign'" (SolveClimate/Reuters)
"Global Warming E-mails Prompt Republican Letter to EPA" (Los Angeles Times)
"Stolen Climate E-Mails Cause A Ruckus In Congress" (NPR)
"As Emissions Increase, Carbon 'Sinks' Get Clogged" (Washington Post)
"Penn State Professor Welcomes Climate Change Scrutiny" (AP)
"Britain: Investigator Assigned To Review Climate Research" (New York Times)
"Forget the Sceptics, the Real Experts Are Scared" (Daily Mirror)
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