This Friday, February 2 – in Paris – scientists from around the world will release a report that assesses signs of global warming and takes a stand on whether it’s man or nature who holds the smoking gun.
Early talk of the report indicates that there’s little doubt left. Earth is getting warmer. We humans are the chief culprit.
Over 800 scientists from more than 130 different countries are working together on this up-to-date picture of scientific understanding of climate change. They are working under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) headed by the United Nations. The IPCC calls its report a “comprehensive and rigorous picture” of the climate change situation.
Scientists and experts working on the report are divided into three groups, each looking separately at the causes, the impacts, and the mitigation of climate change.
Results will be announced on Friday from Working Group I of the IPCC, which looked at the causes of climate change. This group examined evidence of Earth’s changing climate in the atmosphere, the oceans, the polar regions and the tropics. There’s prior evidence for change in all of these places. For example, in 2005, scientists reported that the Arctic might be ice-free during the summer within 100 years, a condition it hasn’t reached in over a million years. Glaciers have retreated all over the world, and scientists just last week announced that ice and snow in the Swiss Alps will all but disappear by 2050.
The melting of terrestrial ice contributes to rising sea level. According to preliminary information, the IPCC is expected to report on Friday that sea level will rise from five to 23 inches – while the average global temperatures rises some 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit – by 2100. In contrast, a study announced earlier this month in the journal Science put the sea level rise number much higher, between 20 to 55 inches by 2100. A dramatic rise in sea level has the potential to radically alter coastlines and inundate thousands of islands.
The mechanism causing the change has become familiar. Earth’s atmosphere acts like a greenhouse, trapping heat from the sun and providing a warm place for life as we know it to thrive. Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, come naturally from volcanoes and plant decomposition. Humans add to these greenhouse gases mainly through the burning of fossil fuels and through land use.
Meanwhile, the effects of global warming – the extent to which it will or will not place a burden on our human culture – are still being debated. The reality is that no one knows what will happen.
Scientists at the IPCC meeting remain tight-lipped to the media about the exact contents of the report until it is released on February 2. Earth & Sky will keep you posted as more news is released.
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Comments: 14
In terms of eventual fallout of global climate change, I would liken it to an irresistable force meeting an immovable object. Climate change is the force, our desire for creature comforts and a constantly rising standard of living are the immovable object. These two things do not collide harmlessly and playfully.
We will experience rising sea levels, changing rainfall patterns, and an eventual end to scepticism and denial after it is too late. A crystal ball is not needful to predict any of this, all you need is occam's razor.
As reflective ice recedes and is replace by open ocean the rate of warming will increase at an exponential rate while our politicians will continue to foster confusion about the cause.
An appalling immoral company is all I can conclude.
"You can't really attribute one single event to global warming. But what global warming does do is that it increases the probability of some of these extreme events, and heavy precipitation is a good example, because we have seen increases in heavy precipitation events. So that is entirely consistent with increases in temperature because as you increase the air temperature, the capacity of the air to hold more water vapor, and it's not just a linear increase. It increases much more with warming.
What that does is that it creates the opportunity for more of these heavy precipitation events. So the heavy snows that we saw in Denver back last month is entirely consistent with this notion of warming, because as you warm up the air, there's more moisture in the air that can precipitate out either as heavy snowfall or as heavy rainfall. So that notion that heavy precipitation events goes along with global warming is consistent."
Overall, I have hope. The fact that an international group like the IPCC can organize and issue such strong scientifically based reports gives me hope that we can all get together and start to mitigate and possibly fix this HUGE problem. If you think about it, humanity is humanity's only hope. It's time we quit arguing about if global warming is real and start doing something about it.
Warm Front
"The Earth's surface, atmosphere and seas are warming; ocean currents are slowing; ice shelves are melting faster than projected; spring is coming ever sooner; rainfall patterns are changing; the ability of the earth to self-regulate to resist warming appears to be waning," NY Times (May 24, 2006)
CO2 is building to dangerous levels. The Arctic is melting. Inupiat villages crumble into the sea. Welcome to the world of WARM FRONT a novel set in the midst of a mounting global warming crisis. Is this just hype? Over the course of a year in 2005-06, caribou biologist/bush pilot Jack Sheldon, and Jake Elmore an environmental reporter for the Fairbanks Daily News-Prospector embark on an investigation from the oilfields of Alaska's North Slope to McMurdo Station, Antarctica; the Caribbean, and the halls of power in Washington D.C. and back to find out.
Elmore lays out the case in a series of climate dispatches. After the first installment is picked up by syndicated websites, Op-Ed's posted from "experts" from World Tech Central, a web of free market think tanks around the globe begin to appear challenging his findings, while the National Wildlife Foundation attempts to sue Arctic Oil Corporation for endangering the polar bears of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. Alaska Senator Richard Sampson opposes them, throwing all his power behind an effort to obfuscate the truth and discredit the scientists. And with billions of dollars of profit and world economies at stake, even dispose of the messengers if need be.
Along the way, both are imperiled by the consequences of abrupt climate change and political intimidation that endangers their careers, lives, and threatens the very existence of life on the planet. Will the message be heard before crossing the tipping point to global disaster?
This story contains the real climate science obtained through meticulous research, and multiple interviews with today's top climatologists including Dr.'s James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt of NASA, and http://www.realclimate.org. It is the anti-Crichton [Michael] novel, who, in State of Fear made a public mockery of the issue; widely touted by industry-funded "sceptics," and became an advisor of sorts to President Bush. This globetrotting eco-thriller will hopefully educate the average person who can't wade through the science in journals in an entertaining, if sobering way. The conclusion is unmistakable.
those solutions.
Finally President Bush mentions, a "post-kyoto strategy"- unless we confront the unknowns & known, we are in the process of compromising the life of future generations.
But, we can't say we weren't warned!! Jorge, thank you for a very timely and informative piece.
The key ploy for Bush has been to constantly yammer about future technologies and how they are going to save our asses, and he constantly goes on photo opps to research facilities (he had to reopen one that he had just shut down in order to do the photo opp in one case). He is totally unconscionable and deceitful on global warming. Do not expect anything to happen until he leaves office and his Exxon buddies will then have to take their chances.
Warm Front
Nicely researched and well-done report.