Jan
29
An IPCC primer
Written by Willy Ritch | Filed Under Uncategorized |
[photopress:bear_1_2_3.jpg,full,pp_image]Global warming is going to be a big news story this week as we approach the Friday release of a UN report on climate change. This would be a good time to pause for a review of some of the basics around the story.
The report is the product of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)–an organization made up of thousands of climate change scientists from around the world. The IPCC was formed by the UN nearly twenty years ago and periodically releases a comprehensive report on what is known and not known about climate change. The last came out in 2001 and the report that will officially be released this week in Paris will be their fourth since the panel’s inception.
The report undergoes several drafts and line-by-line vetting by hundreds of scientists in what I can only imagine must be an exhaustive and sometimes frustrating process. The final report must be given unanimous approval from all of the 154 countries that are represented on the panel. It is this process which gives the report so much credibility—it can truly be seen as the gospel on the latest climate change science. At the same time, you should keep in mind that it a fairly conservative approach to the issue since only the most widely accepted theories are incorporated into the final product.
So, what can we expect from the new report this week? We don’t know for sure until it is released, of course, but a few facts have emerged based on leak draft reports. (An easy-to-digest summary of the currently accepted consensus on climate change, based the IPCC’s Third Assesment Report, can be found here.)
The most important conclusion may strike many people as a little obvious: human activity is causing global warming. The previous report said there was “only” a 66 to 90 percent chance that we are the cause of a rise in the earth’s temperature, but this assessment is said to take most of the uncertainty out and declare that there is 90% likelihood the greenhouse gases we’ve pumped into the atmosphere have caused an increase in the earth’s temperature and further increases along with rising sea levels are likely. This nearly unequivocal statement should put to rest any further debate about whether global warming is real and whether or not it’s caused by human activity.
As far as specific temperatures go, the New York Times’ Andy Revkin reported earlier this month that the report may predict an increase of 4 to 8 degrees by the end of the century. Bloomberg reports today the number may be as high as 11 degrees. By contrast, global averages have only increase about 1 degree since 1900.
How much will sea levels rise? Here’s where it starts to get sticky.
The Chicago Tribune says the report will make a prediction that many climate scientists say is far too optimistic:
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.
Much of the dispute over rising sea levels comes from relatively new information about how quickly ice is already melting in the Arctic and Antarctica. Scientists have been surprised at how quickly ice sheets and glaciers are starting to dissolve in those regions, and many say the IPCC is not adequately considering that information.
Overall, the IPCC Assessment may very well predict a slightly lower range of temperature and sea level increases, but with an increased level of precision and certainty.
There is plenty of political maneuvering going on in the days leading up to the release of the report. The United States, for example, is working hard to have language criticizing the Koyoto process included, and is trying to put a favorable spin on “voluntary” efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses. Just what you’d expect from an Administration who’s solution to the problem of global warming is to send up a bunch of shiny baloons.
This section of the IPCC assessment doesn’t address what should be done about climate change–that comes later. But there are reports that unless dramatic efforts are made within the next ten years to reduce greehouse gasses, it will be too late.
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