Climate change: Prepare for global temperature rise of 4C, warns top scientist

James Randerson: Defra's chief adviser says we need strategy to adapt to potential catastrophic increase.

The UK should take active steps to prepare for dangerous climate change of perhaps 4C according to one of the government's chief scientific advisers.

In policy areas such as flood protection, agriculture and coastal erosion Professor Bob Watson said the country should plan for the effects of a 4C global average rise on pre-industrial levels. The EU is committed to limiting emissions globally so that temperatures do not rise more than 2C.

NVDL: Good idea, except there are a bunch of people (who claim to be very very smart), who say, "No, this is far too complicated for us to even know it's happening, and so we shouldn't do anything about it. Pass another Coca Cola please and can I have fries with that." In short: Do you think when temperatures around the world increase that it might have something to do with a thing called 'global warming'? I don't know, what do you think?

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk The UK should take active steps to prepare for dangerous climate change of perhaps 4C according to one of the government's chief scientific advisers. "There is no doubt that we should aim to limit changes in the global mean surface temperature to 2C above pre-industrial," Watson, the chief scientific adviser to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, told the Guardian. "But given this is an ambitious target, and we don't know in detail how to limit greenhouse gas emissions to realise a 2 degree target, we should be prepared to adapt to 4C." Link to this audio James Randerson: 'Massive shifts in Earth's systems' Globally, a 4C temperature rise would have a catastrophic impact.