Global warming feeds on itself

Well, it seems that global warming itself causes more global warming. An article in the Guardian entitled "Killer heatwave may have fuelled global warming" explains:

*Heat and drought of 2003 stifled forest growth
*Carbon dioxide released as plants suffered

Europe's great heatwave of 2003, which claimed an estimated 35,000 lives and cost the continent's economies an estimated £7bn altogether, may also have fuelled further global warming. A team of more than 30 scientists reports in Nature today that the scorching temperatures and prolonged drought have stifled Europe's forest growth and released huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, to feed still warmer summers in future.
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In temperate climates, forests act as a carbon "sink", with some of the greenhouse gases released from fossil fuels becoming locked away again as wood, leaf litter and buried vegetation. But the picture in the summer of 2003 was dramatically different. Plant growth in Europe dropped that summer by 30% overall, and much of the carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere in the previous four years was released again.

"Such a reduction in Europe's primary productivity is unprecedented during the last century," the scientists report. "An increase in future drought events could turn temperate ecosystems into carbon sources, contributing to positive carbon dioxide feedbacks already anticipated in the tropics and high latitudes."

This is the third warning in three weeks that global warming could be moving to a point of no return. A week ago, US scientists calculated that hurricanes categorised as the most violent had almost doubled in frequency over the past 35 years as sea surface temperatures rose. Two weeks ago a Cranfield University team, who sampled topsoil at 6,000 places in England and Wales over 25 years, reported in Nature that England's soils were sending back carbon to the atmosphere at the rate of 4m tonnes a year.

It's hard to know what comment to make here. It is apparent that we have passed the point of no return. It's very bad and things are only going to get worse. As time goes on there is going to be massive human displacement as new areas of the world become uninhabitable. Needless to say, the political implications are very troubling.