New climate models suggest Paris goals may be out of reachThe models suggest scientists have for decades consistently underestimated the warming potential of CO2. PARIS: New climate models show carbon dioxide is a more potent greenhouse gas than previously understood, a finding that could push the Paris treaty goals for capping global warming out of reach, scientists have told AFP. "We have better models now," Olivier Boucher, head of the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace Climate Modelling Centre in Paris, told AFP, adding that they "represent current climate trends more accurately". The new models reflect a better understanding of cloud dynamics in at least two ways that reinforce the warming impact of CO2. By the late 1970s, scientists settled on a climate sensitivity of 3C (plus-or-minus 1.5C), corresponding to about 560 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Source: Bangkok Post January 14, 2020 04:32 UTC