"INTERVIEW-U.N. climate report will shock the world -chairman"

[Prada]

http://www.rawstory.com/showarticle....2FDEL33627.htm

25 Jan 2007 12:03:22 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Nita Bhalla

NEW DELHI, Jan 25 (Reuters) - A forthcoming U.N. report on climate change will provide the most credible evidence yet of a human link to global warming and hopefully shock the world into taking more action, the panel's chairman said on Thursday.

The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due for release on Feb. 2 in Paris, draws on research by 2,500 scientists from more than 130 countries and has taken six years to compile.

"There are a lot of signs and evidence in this report which clearly establish not only the fact that climate change is taking place, but also that it really is human activity that is influencing that change," R.K. Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, told Reuters.

"I hope this report will shock people, governments into taking more serious action as you really can't get a more authentic and a more credible piece of scientific work. So I hope this will be taken for what it's worth."

The IPCC will say it is at least 90 percent sure than human activities, led by the burning of fossil fuels, are to blame for global warming over the past 50 years, sources say.

The new report is likely to foresee a rise in temperatures of 2 to 4.5 Celcius (3.6-8.1 Fahrenheit) this century, with about 3 Celcius (5.4F) most likely.

FREAK WEATHER

Pachauri told Reuters in an interview the findings of the report, which is the fourth of its kind, will be "far more serious and much more a matter of concern" than previous reports.

There is more evidence around the world that greenhouse emissions are causing temperature increases, sea level rises, the melting of glaciers, freak weather phenomena and the problems of water availability, said Pachauri.

"For example, the Arctic is clearly melting at faster rates than other regions of the world," he said. "The figures are in the report and it is much faster than what was anticipated."

"The impacts are clearly very serious for some vulnerable parts of the world. Small island states are clearly very vulnerable and parts of South Asia are vulnerable in respect of droughts and floods and also the melting of the glaciers."

Pachauri, also director of India's top environment centre, the Energy and Research Institute, said there was more awareness of climate change around the world today than ever before and applauded Europe and Japan for their efforts.

He said scepticism about the linkages between human activities and climate change was dwindling as more evidence came to light.

"I think the sceptics on climate change will continue, but the good news is that their numbers and their effectiveness is on the decline," Pachauri said.

"The gaps in knowledge will always be there in science but you use your judgement and that's what good policy is all about ... If you take action, the benefit is that you might actually be minimising the harmful impacts of global warming."

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[Kärnfysikern]

Shoch and awe tactics has no real place in science. If the science is credible there is no need to market it.

Lets just hope it will remove lingering doubts.

[singern]

Shoch and awe tactics has no real place in science. If the science is credible there is no need to market it.

Lets just hope it will remove lingering doubts.

No different than the Nuke war countdown clock we talked about a few days ago....

[Kärnfysikern]

No different than the Nuke war countdown clock we talked about a few days ago....

You are right there!

But the bulletin is trying to make a politican point not realy a scientific one. Even though they base there arguments on science.

The IPCC on the other hand should be held to the highest scientific standard. Politics, media ect should have no influence.

[Prada]

Yes, 2,500 scientists from more than 130 countries and has taken six years to compile, seems interesting. Lets get to the real report and see what substance it provides instead of this prelude.

[Venomous Nemisis]

I'm shocked

[tinyguy2]

wasn't there a artcile posted a bit ago that the ice isn't melting but getting thicker? why is there conflicting data. i dont care what this report says i dont beilive global warming is a big deal

[Kärnfysikern]

wasn't there a artcile posted a bit ago that the ice isn't melting but getting thicker? why is there conflicting data. i dont care what this report says i dont beilive global warming is a big deal

I think that is refering to the antartic ice.

The artic ice is most defenetly melting. Its even opening up new shipping lanes.

It doesnt matter one bit to sea levels that the artic is melting because all the artic ice was already floating. But it can have negative impacts on the gulf stream. That could be catastrophic for europe.

[tinyguy2]

ok thanks. us yanks in the states would be fine though?

[Logan13]

Experts: Bleak Global-Warming Forecast May Be Too Optimistic
01/29/07
AP
WASHINGTON — Later this week in Paris, climate scientists will issue a dire forecast for the planet that warns of slowly rising sea levels and higher temperatures.

But that may be the sugarcoated version.

Early and changeable drafts of their upcoming authoritative report on climate change foresee smaller sea level rises than were projected in 2001 in the last report.

Many top U.S. scientists reject these rosier numbers. Those calculations don't include the recent, and dramatic, melt-off of big ice sheets in two crucial locations:

They "don't take into account the gorillas — Greenland and Antarctica," said Ohio State University earth sciences professor Lonnie Thompson, a polar ice specialist. "I think there are unpleasant surprises as we move into the 21st century."
Michael MacCracken, who until 2001 coordinated the official U.S. government reviews of the international climate report on global warming, has fired off a letter of protest over the omission.

The melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are a fairly recent development that has taken scientists by surprise. They don't know how to predict its effects in their computer models. But many fear it will mean the world's coastlines are swamped much earlier than most predict.

Others believe the ice melt is temporary and won't play such a dramatic role.

That debate may be the central one as scientists and bureaucrats from around the world gather in Paris to finish the first of four major global warming reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The panel was created by the United Nations in 1988.

After four days of secret word-by-word editing, the final report will be issued Friday.

The early versions of the report predict that by 2100 the sea level will rise anywhere between 5 and 23 inches.

That's far lower than the 20 to 55 inches forecast by 2100 in a study published in the peer-review journal Science this month.

Other climate experts, including NASA's James Hansen, predict sea level rise that can be measured by feet more than inches.

The report is also expected to include some kind of proviso that says things could be much worse if ice sheets continue to melt.

The prediction being considered this week by the IPCC is "obviously not the full story because ice sheet decay is something we cannot model right now, but we know it's happening," said Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate panel lead author from Germany who made the larger prediction of up to 55 inches of sea level rise. "A document like that tends to underestimate the risk," he said.

"This will dominate their discussion because there's so much contentiousness about it," said Bob Corell, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, a multinational research effort. "If the IPCC comes out with significantly less than one meter (about 39 inches of sea level rise), there will be people in the science community saying we don't think that's a fair reflection of what we know."

In the past, the climate change panel didn't figure there would be large melt of ice in west Antarctica and Greenland this century and didn't factor it into the predictions.

Those forecasts were based only on the sea level rise from melting glaciers (which are different from ice sheets) and the physical expansion of water as it warms.

But in 2002, Antarctica's 1,255-square-mile Larsen B ice shelf broke off and disappeared in just 35 days. And recent NASA data shows that Greenland is losing 53 cubic miles of ice each year — twice the rate it was losing in 1996.

Even so, there are questions about how permanent the melting in Greenland and especially Antarctica are, said panel lead author Kevin Trenberth, chief of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.

While he said the melting ice sheets "raise a warning flag," Trenberth said he wonders if "some of this might just be temporary."

University of Alabama at Huntsville professor John Christy said Greenland didn't melt much within the past thousand years, when it was warmer than now.

Christy, a reviewer of the panel work, is a prominent so-called skeptic. He acknowledges that global warming is real and man-made, but he believes it is not as worrisome as advertised.

Those scientists who say sea level will rise even more are battling a consensus-building structure that routinely issues scientifically cautious global warming reports, scientists say.

The IPCC reports have to be unanimous, approved by 154 governments — including the United States and oil-rich countries such as Saudi Arabia — and already published peer-reviewed research done before mid-2006.

Rahmstorf, a physics and oceanography professor at Potsdam University in Germany, says, "In a way, it is one of the strengths of the IPCC to be very conservative and cautious and not overstate any climate change risk."