Below is an article that summarizes the IPCC report: #----------------------------------------
Warming data notes Arctic changes By Tom Kizzia McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The latest international scientific report on global warming, released last week in Paris, is focusing new attention on changes to the Arctic, including a sharp increase projected for rain and snowfall in Alaska. Unlike the previous international summary report, issued in 2001, this one repeatedly mentions the Arctic, according to two of Alaska's leading climate scientists. The northern latitudes have been heating up faster than anywhere else and are already showing significant signs of change. University researchers in Fairbanks and Anchorage said last week the world's scientific community is squarely behind the new report, which concludes there is no longer reasonable doubt that rising temperatures and sea levels are due to human activity. The United Nations-backed report says it is nearly certain - with a confidence level of more than 90 percent - that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases generated by humans have been the main cause of rising temperatures in the last half century. "The smoking gun is now there in terms of human contribution," said John Walsh, a climate scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. "It's going to be received as a call for action in the United States." But Alaska's best-known climate-change skeptic, Syun Akasofu of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said he's still not convinced. He said the 21-page summary report released Friday does not appear to allow sufficiently for natural fluctuations in climate. "There is no question that climate change is occurring in the Arctic. The question is what's causing this," said Akasofu, an aurora scientist who retired last week as director of the university's International Arctic Research Center. He said scientists must do a better job teasing out natural and regional heating trends and subtracting these effects from the overall measured changes. Walsh disagreed. He said the detailed reports underlying Friday's release will spell out how natural variability has already been allowed for. One table released Friday showed solar radiation as only a minor contributor compared to emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases. The new report is a product of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, drawing on work from hundreds of scientists from 113 countries. It represents the fourth such assessment of scientific thinking on the issue since 1990, when scientists were still trying to decide if the warming trend was real. Deborah Williams, a global warming advocate with Alaska Conservation Solutions in Anchorage, said the strongly-worded report should resolve the science dispute over causes for all but the most determined climate-change "deniers." "To my mind, this is like the Supreme Court of international scientists issuing a final decision," Williams said. This report focuses mainly on causes and projections. Detailed IPCC reports on impacts and options for limiting emissions are scheduled for release later this year. Regarding effects on Alaska, the impact report will draw heavily on the 2004 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, an international effort that received much discussion here, said Walsh, who helped write the new report's polar regions chapter. Among the impacts in Alaska, which the scientists said will be detailed in the report to come: shrinking glaciers, receding sea ice and snow cover, melting permafrost and advancing tree lines. One anticipated impact that has not received much attention yet is an increase in precipitation in Alaska of 15 percent to 25 percent, Walsh said. That could mean more erosion and more frequent thunderstorms in Interior Alaska, he said. "Stream flow runoff may have perhaps more consequences than temperature change in an area like Alaska," Walsh said. Other new studies affecting the polar regions involve accelerated loss of sea ice, harm to polar bears and other marine mammals, and increasing ultraviolet radiation through an Arctic ozone hole, Walsh said. The new report is bleak, noting that the globe will continue to warm for centuries even if carbon emissions are cut back to the levels of the year 2000. The last IPCC report said it was "likely" - defined as a confidence level of better than 66 percent - that human activity was a major factor in global warming. The new report raised that level to "very likely," citing a multitude of new studies and climate models run by supercomputers. The report said it is "very likely" that the world will experience more heat waves and heavy rainstorms and that Arctic sea ice will disappear "almost entirely" by the end of the century. It is "likely" that hurricanes will become fewer but more intense, the report said. "How likely are these things? These are questions the insurance companies and Senator (Ted) Stevens have been asking," said Jeff Welker, director of the Environment and Natural Resources Institute at the University of Alaska Anchorage. "The scientific community is fully behind the conclusions." The report forecast an increase in the earth's average temperature of between 3.5 and 8 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century, with northern latitudes feeling a much higher impact. The biggest controversy around the report involved projected sea levels. The final language anticipated a rise of between 7 and 23 inches over the next century. That projection was based largely on thermal expansion - the slight rise of the ocean as it warms. It marked a rarity in the debate over global warming - a decline in projected impacts, from a forecast of 35 inches in the last IPCC report. However, the report anticipated that the seas would continue to rise unchecked for centuries. And because of scientific uncertainty, the report did not allow for fresh water melting off the glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica. Critics last week said recent Greenland studies suggest melting ice could add several feet more to sea levels. "Both past and future (human-caused) carbon dioxide emissions will continue to contribute to warming and sea level rise for more than a millennium, due to the time scales involved in removal of this gas from the atmosphere," the report said. http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/breaking_news/16633734.htm or http://tinyurl.com/3daeww #--------------------------------------------- Regards, LelandJ [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
