New IPCC report on Global Warming | TigerFan.com

red55 · Apr 11, 2007

Once again, 2500 experts agree on the global warming problem.

IPCC Report - The Arctic: Thawing Permafrost, Melting Sea Ice And More Significant Changes
April 11, 2007

Science Daily — Dramatic changes to the lives and livelihoods of Arctic-living communities are being forecast unless urgent action is taken to reduce greenhouse gases, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Its Working Group II predicts wide-ranging thawing of the Arctic permafrost which is likely to have significant implications for infrastructure including houses, buildings, roads, railways and pipelines. A combination of reduced sea ice, thawing permafrost and storm surges also threatens erosion of Arctic coastlines with impacts on coastal communities, culturally important sites and industrial facilities.

One study suggests that a three degree C increase in average summer air temperatures could increase erosion rates in the eastern Siberia Arctic by three to five metres a year. In some part of the Arctic, toxic and radioactive materials are stored and contained in frozen ground. Thawing may release these substances in the local and wider environment with risks to humans and wildlife alongside significant clean up costs.
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Of course, politicians managed to get some portions of the report changed, those portions most likley to be read by policy-makers, over the objections of the scientists.

Political Heat Over the Planet
April 6, 2007

TIME/CNN -- Climate change is the very definition of a global problem — its causes and effects cross all national boundaries, and so must its remedies. But if human activity in burning fossil fuels is the cause of global warming, as the consensus now holds, then human activity in the political and diplomatic realm may also prove be the greatest obstacle to an effective global response to the problem. That much was clear in Brussels on Friday in the struggles over the latest report of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The IPCC process encapsulates both the promise and the problem of global consensus on climate change. Under its aegis, 2,500 scientists from around the world have reviewed the voluminous research on climate change in order to assess its impact now and in the future. Their conclusions were then reviewed by officials from over 100 countries — some less convinced than others of the science behind global warming — to produce a document politically acceptable to the governments of the world. The search for diplomatic consensus necessarily waters down the findings of the scientists, although such consensus is a prerequisite for effective global action.

The IPCC had concluded in February that greenhouse gas emissions from human activity were "very likely" the chief driver of global warming, and Friday's report dealt with its human and ecological impact. But clashes between scientists and political officials over its wording almost prevented the report from being published on schedule. Countries such as China, Russia and the U.S. reportedly pushed to water down the IPCC's predictions, while the scientists whose work formed the backbone of the report fought back in an all-night session preceding Friday's release.

Though some scientists angrily denounced the IPCC report as a hobbled compromise even then, its predictions make frightening reading. The IPCC concludes that global warming has almost certainly triggered changes in the Earth's ecosystem that have already been felt in increased drought, shrinking glaciers and changing seasons, and these effects are expected to intensify. Freshwater stored in glaciers and snow cover will be lost, while rainfall will increasingly come in destructive deluges, reducing the water supply to one-sixth of the humanity — with the teeming masses dependent on the melt water from the Himalayas particularly hard hit.

Some 20-30% of plant and animal species are at risk of extinction if global temperatures rise in line with median projections, while by 2080, many millions of people living along coastlines will face an annual flood risk. As Camille Parmesan, a professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas, put it, "We're going into a realm the world has not seen for a very long time."

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