It fell to scientists to draw international attention to the threats posed by global warming. Evidence in the 1960s and '70s that concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were increasing first led climatologists and others to press for action. It took years before the international community responded.
* In 1988, an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). This group issued a first assessment report in 1990 which reflected the views of 400 scientists. The report stated that global warming was real and urged that something be done about it.
* The Panel's findings spurred governments to create the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. By standards for international agreements, negotiation of the Convention was rapid. It was ready for signature at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development -- more popularly known as the "Earth Summit" -- in Rio de Janeiro.
* The IPCC now has a well-established role. It does not conduct its own scientific inquiries, but reviews worldwide research, issues regular assessment reports (there have now been four), and compiles special reports and technical papers.
The IPCC Assessment Reports
The preparation of the Assessment Reports on Climate Change is a key activity of the IPCC. The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) was released in 2007, and it consists of four volumes: the three IPCC Working Groups (WGs) Reports and a Synthesis Report (SYR)." The process towards the Fifth Assessment Report is now underway.
* The IPCC's findings, because they reflect global scientific consensus and are apolitical in character, form a useful counterbalance to the often highly charged political debate over what to do about climate change. IPCC reports are frequently used as the basis for decisions made under the Convention, and they played a major role in the negotiations leading to the Kyoto Protocol, a second, more far-reaching international treaty on climate change that entered into force on 16 February 2005.
Showing posts with label IPCC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IPCC. Show all posts
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Saturday, September 5, 2009
IPCC Fouth Report
IPCC 4th Report
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by WMO and UNEP to assess scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. This site draws heavily on the reports published by the IPCC, and the science underpins pretty much every page.
There are three IPCC working groups, and each publish three separate reports that together make up the total report. The main report for each working group is generally over a hundred pages in length. The IPCC also has a summary document (about 20 pages) for each report. Below we have condensed these summaries to provide an overview of each section:
1. Working Group I - The Physical Science Basis
2. Working Group II - Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
3. Working Group III - Mitigation of Climate Change
Comments by Tim Flannery
Australian of the Year Tim Flannery has said, the UN climate predictions on the consequences of global warming tread the "middle of the road" but will still provide a useful benchmark for the world to tackle climate change.
Professor Flannery, author of the book The Weather Makers said climate change was the most serious issue confronting humanity. The IPCC 4th Report "lays out a sort of middle of the road trajectory, which is alarming enough I can tell you, for this century," he told the ABC Radio National.
He also said that, temperatures could rise by much more than the IPCC 4th Report prediction of three degrees. "It could be worse than this - there's a 10 per cent chance of truly catastrophic rises in temperatures, so we're looking at six degrees or so", and "That would be a disaster for all life on earth. Three degrees will be a disaster for all life on earth."
"We will lose somewhere between two out of every 10 and six out of every 10 species living on the planet at that level of warming. "It will set in train a series of climate consequences that will run for a thousand years."
Tim Flannery said the clearest example of the IPCC's conservatism was its prediction the Arctic ice cap could disappear in summers by 2100.
"The actual trajectory we've seen in the Arctic over the last two years, if you follow that, that implies that the Arctic ice cap will be gone in the next five to 15 years. This is an ice cap that's been around for the last three million years," he said.
He went on to say that the predictions tell you a little bit about the conservatism of the IPCC 4th Report , "how rapidly the science is moving and how rapidly events in the real world are moving, far in advance I think of even the most sombre warnings by scientists working in this area."
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by WMO and UNEP to assess scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. This site draws heavily on the reports published by the IPCC, and the science underpins pretty much every page.
There are three IPCC working groups, and each publish three separate reports that together make up the total report. The main report for each working group is generally over a hundred pages in length. The IPCC also has a summary document (about 20 pages) for each report. Below we have condensed these summaries to provide an overview of each section:
1. Working Group I - The Physical Science Basis
2. Working Group II - Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
3. Working Group III - Mitigation of Climate Change
Comments by Tim Flannery
Australian of the Year Tim Flannery has said, the UN climate predictions on the consequences of global warming tread the "middle of the road" but will still provide a useful benchmark for the world to tackle climate change.
Professor Flannery, author of the book The Weather Makers said climate change was the most serious issue confronting humanity. The IPCC 4th Report "lays out a sort of middle of the road trajectory, which is alarming enough I can tell you, for this century," he told the ABC Radio National.
He also said that, temperatures could rise by much more than the IPCC 4th Report prediction of three degrees. "It could be worse than this - there's a 10 per cent chance of truly catastrophic rises in temperatures, so we're looking at six degrees or so", and "That would be a disaster for all life on earth. Three degrees will be a disaster for all life on earth."
"We will lose somewhere between two out of every 10 and six out of every 10 species living on the planet at that level of warming. "It will set in train a series of climate consequences that will run for a thousand years."
Tim Flannery said the clearest example of the IPCC's conservatism was its prediction the Arctic ice cap could disappear in summers by 2100.
"The actual trajectory we've seen in the Arctic over the last two years, if you follow that, that implies that the Arctic ice cap will be gone in the next five to 15 years. This is an ice cap that's been around for the last three million years," he said.
He went on to say that the predictions tell you a little bit about the conservatism of the IPCC 4th Report , "how rapidly the science is moving and how rapidly events in the real world are moving, far in advance I think of even the most sombre warnings by scientists working in this area."
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