UN report says climate change man-made
SETH BORENSTEIN
Associated Press
PARIS — The warning from a top panel of international scientists was blunt and dire: “warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” the cause is “very likely” man-made, and the menace will “continue for centuries.”
Authors of the 21-page report released Friday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change placed the onus on governments to stop prevaricating and take action.
Among other things, the report highlighted “increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and (a) rising global mean sea level.”
It said man-made emissions of greenhouse gases can already be blamed for fewer cold days, hotter nights, killer heat waves, floods and heavy rains, devastating droughts and an increase in hurricane and tropical storm strength — particularly in the Atlantic Ocean.
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Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (AFP/Getty Images)
The message to be taken home from the report is “it's later than we think,” panel co-chair Susan Solomon of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The Associated Press in an interview.
The report and the scientists who wrote it called the document conservative. It used only peer reviewed published science and was edited by representatives of 113 governments that also had to agree to every word, including those opposed to measures like the Koyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Although it is a snapshot of where the world stands with regard to global warming and where it is heading, it does not tell governments what to do.
Yet if nothing is done, the world is looking at more than one million dead and hundreds of billions of dollars in costs adapting to a warmer world with more extreme weather, study co-author Kevin Trenberth, director of climate analysis at the U.S National Center for Atmospheric Research, said in an interview.
Another report by the panel later this year will address the most effective measures for slowing global warming.
If it looks bad now, the harmful effects during the 21st century “would very likely be larger than those observed during the 20th century,” the report said.
The panel predicted temperature rises of 1.1 to 6.4 Celsius by the year 2100. That was a wider range than in the 2001 report, although the panel also said its best estimate was rises of 1.8 to 4 C.
The projected effects of global warming would vary in different parts of the globe. The closer to the poles, the higher the temperature spikes, according to the report. Dramatic and noticeable temperature spikes are likely to be seen within 22 years in most of the Northern Hemisphere, the report showed. Northern Africa and other places will see dramatically less rainfall.
And that's just average temperature increases and rainfall amounts, something that doesn't affect people much.
People experience the harshest of global warming during extreme weather events — heat waves, droughts, floods, and hurricanes — said study co-author Philip Jones of Britain's University of East Anglia. And those events have increased dramatically in the past decade and will get even worse in the future, he said.
On sea levels, the report projects rises of 18 to 59 centimetres by the end of the century. An additional 10 to 20 centimetres is possible if the recent, surprising melting of polar ice sheets continues.
The next step is up to public officials, scientists said. “I want to see action — not messages,” said Swiss scientist Thomas Stocker, a co-author.
Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Program, said it was “critical that we look at this report ... as a moment where the focus of attention will shift from whether climate change is linked to human activity, whether the science is sufficient, to what on earth are we going to do about it.”
“The public should not sit back and say ‘There's nothing we can do,'” Mr. Steiner added. “Anyone who would continue to risk inaction on the basis of the evidence presented here will one day in the history books be considered irresponsible.”
Gerry Meehl of the U.S. atmospheric research centre warned that continued global warming could eventually lead to an “ice-free Arctic.”
When that happened 125,000 years ago, seas rose between four and six metres. That is looking like a real possibility for the 22nd century, the report said, but some scientists fear much of that may happen before the end of the 21st Century.
The report said no matter how much civilization slows or reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and sea-level rise will continue for centuries.
“This is just not something you can stop. We're just going to have to live with it,” Mr. Trenberth said. “We're creating a different planet. If you were to come back in 100 years' time, we'll have a different climate.”
Scientists worry that world leaders will take that message in the wrong way and throw up their hands, Mr. Trenberth said. That would be wrong, he said. Instead, the scientists urged leaders to reduce emissions and also adapt to a warmer world with wilder weather.
As the IPCC report was being released, environmental activists rappelled off a Paris bridge and draped a banner over a statue used often as a popular gauge of whether the Seine River is running high.
“Alarm bells are ringing. The world must wake up to the threat,” said Catherine Pearce of Friends of the Earth.
http://tinyurl.com/yrqfnk
SETH BORENSTEIN
Associated Press
PARIS — The warning from a top panel of international scientists was blunt and dire: “warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” the cause is “very likely” man-made, and the menace will “continue for centuries.”
Authors of the 21-page report released Friday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change placed the onus on governments to stop prevaricating and take action.
Among other things, the report highlighted “increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and (a) rising global mean sea level.”
It said man-made emissions of greenhouse gases can already be blamed for fewer cold days, hotter nights, killer heat waves, floods and heavy rains, devastating droughts and an increase in hurricane and tropical storm strength — particularly in the Atlantic Ocean.
Related to this article
The message to be taken home from the report is “it's later than we think,” panel co-chair Susan Solomon of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The Associated Press in an interview.
The report and the scientists who wrote it called the document conservative. It used only peer reviewed published science and was edited by representatives of 113 governments that also had to agree to every word, including those opposed to measures like the Koyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Although it is a snapshot of where the world stands with regard to global warming and where it is heading, it does not tell governments what to do.
Yet if nothing is done, the world is looking at more than one million dead and hundreds of billions of dollars in costs adapting to a warmer world with more extreme weather, study co-author Kevin Trenberth, director of climate analysis at the U.S National Center for Atmospheric Research, said in an interview.
Another report by the panel later this year will address the most effective measures for slowing global warming.
If it looks bad now, the harmful effects during the 21st century “would very likely be larger than those observed during the 20th century,” the report said.
The panel predicted temperature rises of 1.1 to 6.4 Celsius by the year 2100. That was a wider range than in the 2001 report, although the panel also said its best estimate was rises of 1.8 to 4 C.
The projected effects of global warming would vary in different parts of the globe. The closer to the poles, the higher the temperature spikes, according to the report. Dramatic and noticeable temperature spikes are likely to be seen within 22 years in most of the Northern Hemisphere, the report showed. Northern Africa and other places will see dramatically less rainfall.
And that's just average temperature increases and rainfall amounts, something that doesn't affect people much.
People experience the harshest of global warming during extreme weather events — heat waves, droughts, floods, and hurricanes — said study co-author Philip Jones of Britain's University of East Anglia. And those events have increased dramatically in the past decade and will get even worse in the future, he said.
On sea levels, the report projects rises of 18 to 59 centimetres by the end of the century. An additional 10 to 20 centimetres is possible if the recent, surprising melting of polar ice sheets continues.
The next step is up to public officials, scientists said. “I want to see action — not messages,” said Swiss scientist Thomas Stocker, a co-author.
Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Program, said it was “critical that we look at this report ... as a moment where the focus of attention will shift from whether climate change is linked to human activity, whether the science is sufficient, to what on earth are we going to do about it.”
“The public should not sit back and say ‘There's nothing we can do,'” Mr. Steiner added. “Anyone who would continue to risk inaction on the basis of the evidence presented here will one day in the history books be considered irresponsible.”
Gerry Meehl of the U.S. atmospheric research centre warned that continued global warming could eventually lead to an “ice-free Arctic.”
When that happened 125,000 years ago, seas rose between four and six metres. That is looking like a real possibility for the 22nd century, the report said, but some scientists fear much of that may happen before the end of the 21st Century.
The report said no matter how much civilization slows or reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and sea-level rise will continue for centuries.
“This is just not something you can stop. We're just going to have to live with it,” Mr. Trenberth said. “We're creating a different planet. If you were to come back in 100 years' time, we'll have a different climate.”
Scientists worry that world leaders will take that message in the wrong way and throw up their hands, Mr. Trenberth said. That would be wrong, he said. Instead, the scientists urged leaders to reduce emissions and also adapt to a warmer world with wilder weather.
As the IPCC report was being released, environmental activists rappelled off a Paris bridge and draped a banner over a statue used often as a popular gauge of whether the Seine River is running high.
“Alarm bells are ringing. The world must wake up to the threat,” said Catherine Pearce of Friends of the Earth.
http://tinyurl.com/yrqfnk
