Draft Gore 2008 PAC

The 10th IIPC WG I Session just concluded in Paris. There was a webcast of the press conference to announce approval of the Fourth Assessment Report (4AR) Summary for Policymakers (SPM) at 9:30 a.m. Central European Time (3:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time) this morning. The webcast provided an audio record of the press conference synchronized with slides.

The full report is due to be released in a week's time, here is the Reuter's copy on the draft UN report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

OSLO (Reuters) - World sea levels will keep rising for more than 1,000 years even if governments manage to slow a projected surge in temperatures this century blamed on greenhouse gases, a draft U.N. climate report says.

The study, by a panel of 2,500 scientists who advise the United Nations, also says that dust from volcanic eruptions and air pollution seems to have braked warming in recent decades by reflecting sunlight back into space, scientific sources said.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will publish its report, the most complete overview of climate change science, in Paris on February 2 after a final review. It will guide policy makers combating global warming.

The draft projects more droughts, rains, shrinking Arctic ice and glaciers and rising sea levels to 2100 and cautions that the effects of a build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will last far longer.

"Twenty-first century anthropogenic (human) carbon dioxide emissions will contribute to warming and sea level rise for more than a millennium, due to the timescales required for removal of this gas," the sources quoted the report as saying.

Still, the report has good news by quoting six models with central projections of sea level rises this century of between 28 and 43 cm (11 and 16.9 inches) -- compared to a far wider band of 9 to 88 cm (3.5 to 34.6 inches) in a 2001 report, they said.

Sea levels rose by 17 cm (6.7 inches) in the 20th century. Rising seas would threaten low-lying Pacific islands, coasts from Bangladesh to Florida and cities from Shanghai to Buenos Aires.

The report says it is "very likely" -- or more than a 90 percent chance -- that human activities, led by burning fossil fuels, are to blame for warming since 1950.

The previous report in 2001 said the link was "likely," or at least 66 percent. Lingering uncertainties include whether higher temperatures will bring more clouds -- their white tops bounce heat back into space.

In New Delhi, IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said he hoped the report would shock governments into action.

"I hope this report will shock people, governments into taking more serious action as you really can't get a more authentic and a more credible piece of scientific work," he told Reuters.

The draft projects temperatures will rise by 2 to 4.5 Celsius (3.6 to 8.1 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels with a "best estimate" of a 3C (5.4 F) rise, assuming carbon dioxide levels are stabilised at about 45 percent above current levels.

That is a narrower range than the 1.4-5.8C (2.5-10.4F) projected in the previous IPCC report in 2001, which did not say which end of the band was most likely. The European Union says any temperature rise above 2C will cause "dangerous" changes.

Stabilising carbon dioxide levels would lead to a further temperature rise of about 0.5C (0.8F), mostly between 2100-2200, and push up sea levels by a further 30 to 80 cm (11 to 31 inches) by 2300 with decreasing rates in later centuries, it said.

It notes that sea levels were probably 4 to 6 metres (13 to 19-1/2 feet) higher when temperatures were 3C higher than the present in a period between Ice Ages 125,000 years ago.

The Gulf Stream, bringing warm waters to the North Atlantic, was likely to slow but not enough to offset an overall warming. And there was scant chance of an abrupt shutdown of the ocean current system by 2100.

We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age. Not since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world faced such perilous choices. North Korea’s recent test of a nuclear weapon, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a renewed U.S. emphasis on the military utility of nuclear weapons, the failure to adequately secure nuclear materials, and the continued presence of some 26,000 nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia are symptomatic of a larger failure to solve the problems posed by the most destructive technology on Earth.

As in past deliberations, we have examined other human-made threats to civilization. We have concluded that the dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons. The effects may be less dramatic in the short term than the destruction that could be wrought by nuclear explosions, but over the next three to four decades climate change could cause drastic harm to the habitats upon which human societies depend for survival.

This deteriorating state of global affairs leads the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists--in consultation with a Board of Sponsors that includes 18 Nobel laureates--to move the minute hand of the “Doomsday Clock” from seven to five minutes to midnight.

Up to 50,000 US science teachers can receive a free copy of the DVD by filling out a simple request form here. The deadline for requesting your copy is January 18, so if you want a copy, take a few minutes to put in your request right away.

On a related note, the National Science Teachers Association won't be endorsing candidates who are critical of Exxon/Mobile. See RealClimate for the unfortunate details.

2007 is likely to be the warmest year on record globally, beating the current record set in 1998, say climate-change experts at the Met Office.

The "hockey stick" is now up at the UK Met Office.

via El Pais (Madrid)

El cambio climático AVANCE DEL INFORME OFICIAL DE NACIONES UNIDAS 2.500 científícos prevén nuevas olas de calor, deshielos y subidas del nivel del mar

The National Arbor Day Foundation's mission is to inspire people to plant, nurture, and celebrate trees. The Foundation just updated its hardiness map, and the changes since 1990 are dramatic.

Click on the thumbnail for the larger image. The changes in zones ripple through the gardening and farms planting and yeilds, all the way to the pollinator ecologies.

via RealClimate:

The debate in governments over the science ended this year.

The debate among economists over the costs and benefits ended this year.

And we even learned where the human damage will be the greatest, and the ability to mitigate also the least, not the circumpolar regions, but sub-saharan Africa.

The Royal Dutch meteorological Institute reported today that the the average temperature for July through September was 13.5^oC, 1.5^oC above the previous year, and 3.4^oC above the norm for the season. It was the warmest autumn in 300 years.