[article] UN Climate Change Panel report 2007

mike65

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-02-02T142536Z_01_L01878807_RTRUKOC_0_UK-GLOBALWARMING.xml

U.N. climate panel says warming is man-made
Fri Feb 2, 2007 2:26 PM GMT

By Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle

PARIS (Reuters) - The world's top climate scientists said on Friday global warming was man-made, spurring calls for urgent government action to prevent severe and irreversible damage from rising temperatures.

The United Nations panel, which groups 2,500 scientists from more than 130 nations, predicted more droughts, heatwaves, rains and a slow gain in sea levels that could last for more than 1,000 years.


The scientists said it was "very likely" -- or more than 90 percent probable -- that human activities led by burning fossil fuels explained most of the warming in the past 50 years.

That is a toughening from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) last report in 2001, which judged a link as "likely", or 66 percent probable.

Possible signs range from drought in Australia to record high winter temperatures in Europe.

"February 2, 2007 may be remembered as the day the question mark was removed from whether (people) are to blame for climate change," said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme.

"Faced with this emergency, now is not the time for half measures. It is the time for a revolution, in the true sense of the term," French President Jacques Chirac said. "We are in truth on the historical doorstep of the irreversible."

Mike.

RuggieBear

i wish they'd actually host the bloody report on their site. my boss is pressuring me to get it.:(

piraka

Summary for Policymakers

Strange that the summary came out before the completion of the Technical Report
(link fixed)

Jonny7

Well NOT according to almost 100% of comments on the FOX NEWS website (2nd most watched tv news station in the US)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,249839,00.html

PDD

Oh my GOD! Either all the comments were heavily vetted, possibly deliberately posted or Americans really are that insular! The scientific data is undeniable - maybe someone needs to put it into a movie format so they can be spoon fed it. Oh wait they did - An Incovenient Truth

Celticfire

PDD wrote:

Oh my GOD! Either all the comments were heavily vetted, possibly deliberately posted or Americans really are that insular! The scientific data is undeniable - maybe someone needs to put it into a movie format so they can be spoon fed it. Oh wait they did - An Incovenient Truth

Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many, is a surprising assessment: “Gore’s circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention.”

Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change. “Climate experts” is the operative term here. Why? Because what Gore’s “majority of scientists” think is immaterial when only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field.

Even among that fraction, many focus their studies on the impacts of climate change; biologists, for example, who study everything from insects to polar bears to poison ivy. “While many are highly skilled researchers, they generally do not have special knowledge about the causes of global climate change,” explains former University of Winnipeg climatology professor Dr. Tim Ball. “They usually can tell us only about the effects of changes in the local environment where they conduct their studies.”

This is highly valuable knowledge, but doesn’t make them climate change cause experts, only climate impact experts.

Among experts who actually examine the causes of change on a global scale, many concentrate their research on designing and enhancing computer models of hypothetical futures. “These models have been consistently wrong in all their scenarios,” asserts Ball. “Since modelers concede computer outputs are not “predictions” but are in fact merely scenarios, they are negligent in letting policy-makers and the public think they are actually making forecasts.”

We should listen most to scientists who use real data to try to understand what nature is actually telling us about the causes and extent of global climate change. In this relatively small community, there is no consensus, despite what Gore and others would suggest.

Here is a small sample of the side of the debate we almost never hear:

Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, “There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth’s temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years.” Patterson asked the committee, “On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century’s modest warming?”

Patterson concluded his testimony by explaining what his research and “hundreds of other studies” reveal: on all time scales, there is very good correlation between Earth’s temperature and natural celestial phenomena such changes in the brightness of the Sun.

Dr. Boris Winterhalter, former marine researcher at the Geological Survey of Finland and professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, takes apart Gore’s dramatic display of Antarctic glaciers collapsing into the sea. “The breaking glacier wall is a normally occurring phenomenon which is due to the normal advance of a glacier,” says Winterhalter.

But Karlén clarifies that the ‘mass balance’ of Antarctica is positive - more snow is accumulating than melting off. As a result, Ball explains, there is an increase in the ‘calving’ of icebergs as the ice dome of Antarctica is growing and flowing to the oceans. The Antarctic has survived warm and cold events over millions of years. A meltdown is simply not a realistic scenario in the foreseeable future.

Karlén explains that a paper published in 2003 by University of Alaska professor Igor Polyakov shows that, the region of the Arctic where rising temperature is supposedly endangering polar bears showed fluctuations since 1940 but no overall temperature rise. “For several published records it is a decrease for the last 50 years,” says Karlén

Carter does not pull his punches about Gore’s activism, “The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science.”

The vast amounts of energy in our natural systems greatly outweigh our puny attempts to control nature.

We are not responsible for climate change, there has been a net cooling tend over the last 8000 years, and we’re not all going to drown. So rather than blindly following a failed politician’s delusional catastrophism, why don’t we all start concerning ourselves with the issues that we can control, such as pollution, energy supply, and limited resources?

Not everyone agrees with Gore, just because a movie is made doesn't make it fact.

junkyard

The scientific data would be undeniable if the facts were based on true figures. All I'm seeing are "ifs," "buts," "likelys" and "possibles" and taxes seem to be the cure all solution to global warming. There are so many reasons being blamed for global warming at this stage its hard to pinpoint one but for sure this planet has been warming up for thousands or millions of years. I'm pretty sure if we're going to fry or freeze to death taxes are not going to solve anything. If all these scientists at least got their stories right it would at least give them a bit more credibility rather then one crowd slagging off the other. I can see this argument running for hundreds or thousands of years tbh and keeping a lot of people in jobs, it certainly looks like a nice little earner to me.:rolleyes:

RedPlanet

ppearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, “There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth’s temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years.” Patterson asked the committee, “On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century’s modest warming?”

-on edit-
Ok i take that back.
Sounds like the earth 450 million years ago was a very, very different place.

The timing of the first animals to leave the oceans is not precisely known: the oldest clear evidence is of arthropods on land around 450 million years ago, perhaps thriving and becoming better adapted due to the vast food source provided by the terrestrial plants. There is also some unconfirmed evidence that arthropods may have appeared on land as early as 530 million years ago. At the end of the Ordovician period, 440 million years ago, additional extinction events occurred, perhaps as a result of a concurrent ice age. Around 380 to 375 million years ago the first tetrapods evolved from the fish. It is thought that perhaps fins evolved to become limbs which allowed the first tetrapods to lift their heads out of the water to breathe air. This would let them survive in oxygen-poor water or pursue small prey in shallow water. They may have later ventured on land for brief periods. Eventually, some of them became so well adapted to terrestrial life that they spent their adult lives on land, although they hatched in the water and returned to lay their eggs. This was the origin of the amphibians. About 365 million years ago, another period of extinction occurred, perhaps as a result of global cooling. Plants evolved seeds, which dramatically accelerated their spread on land, around this time (by approximately 360 million years ago).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Earth

fits

junkyard wrote:

The scientific data would be undeniable if the facts were based on true figures.

What do you mean? What sort of true figures do you want? You seem to have a very strong opinion on this subject but I dont think you've done any reading to back it up, honestly....

99% (at least) of scientists accept that the current temperature rise is anthropogenically linked. This argument is long over in the scientific world.. The UN report is old news to me, cant believe the media are treating it as something new...

Celticfire

fits wrote:

What do you mean? What sort of true figures do you want? You seem to have a very strong opinion on this subject but I dont think you've done any reading to back it up, honestly....

99% (at least) of scientists accept that the current temperature rise is anthropogenically linked. This argument is long over in the scientific world.. The UN report is old news to me, cant believe the media are treating it as something new...

If this time we are the sole cause of temperature rise can you please explain to me what caused all the other temperature fluctuations and ice ages throughout the last few hundred thousand years.

Are you really saying that our contribution of 11 parts Co2 per MILLION is the only cause of global change?

fits

Celticfire wrote:

If this time we are the sole cause of temperature rise can you please explain to me what caused all the other temperature fluctuations and ice ages throughout the last few hundred thousand years.

Are you really saying that our contribution of 11 parts Co2 per MILLION is the only cause of global change?

Another one :rolleyes:

Noone, absolutely noone is saying that the climate doesnt fluctuate naturally. That is a given. There is a moderate guess that CO2 atmospheric concentration will increase from ca 350ppm to ca 650ppm over the next 100 years (an underestimation in my view). The increased concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (NOx and Methane also) is very much accelarating change.

This stuff has all been accepted widely by the scientific community for a few years now. It wont take long to dig up some information if you are actually that interested in the scientific basis.

Celticfire

fits wrote:

There is a moderate guess ........

Nobody knows how much warming will occur in the next century. The computer models vary by 400% , which in it's self is proof that nobody knows.

We can't assess the future nor can we predict it. We can only guess. An informed guess is still just a guess.

fits

Celticfire wrote:

The computer models vary by 400% , which in it's self is proof that nobody knows.

That is a very general statement you've made there. Which models? For which greenhouse gas scenarios. Nobody knows what? exactly whats going to happen?? That applies right across everything.

Guess was probably the wrong word, its more like an estimation based on current levels of emission and population and economic growth modelling. Noone can tell the future so what exactly to you want from scientists? To ignore the problem altogether and hope it goes away???

Celticfire

Lawrence Solomon, National Post
Published: Friday, February 02, 2007

Astrophysicist Nir Shariv, one of Israel's top young scientists, describes the logic that led him -- and most everyone else -- to conclude that SUVs, coal plants and other things man-made cause global warming.

Step One Scientists for decades have postulated that increases in carbon dioxide and other gases could lead to a greenhouse effect.

Step Two As if on cue, the temperature rose over the course of the 20th century while greenhouse gases proliferated due to human activities.

Step Three No other mechanism explains the warming. Without another candidate, greenhouses gases necessarily became the cause.

Dr. Shariv, a prolific researcher who has made a name for himself assessing the movements of two-billion-year-old meteorites, no longer accepts this logic, or subscribes to these views. He has recanted: "Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming. But after carefully digging into the evidence, I realized that things are far more complicated than the story sold to us by many climate scientists or the stories regurgitated by the media.

"In fact, there is much more than meets the eye."


Dr. Shariv's digging led him to the surprising discovery that there is no concrete evidence -- only speculation -- that man-made greenhouse gases cause global warming. Even research from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change-- the United Nations agency that heads the worldwide effort to combat global warming -- is bereft of anything here inspiring confidence. In fact, according to the IPCC's own findings, man's role is so uncertain that there is a strong possibility that we have been cooling, not warming, the Earth. Unfortunately, our tools are too crude to reveal what man's effect has been in the past, let alone predict how much warming or cooling we might cause in the future.

All we have on which to pin the blame on greenhouse gases, says Dr. Shaviv, is "incriminating circumstantial evidence," which explains why climate scientists speak in terms of finding "evidence of fingerprints." Circumstantial evidence might be a fine basis on which to justify reducing greenhouse gases, he adds, "without other 'suspects.' " However, Dr. Shaviv not only believes there are credible "other suspects," he believes that at least one provides a superior explanation for the 20th century's warming.

"Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming," he states, particularly because of the evidence that has been accumulating over the past decade of the strong relationship that cosmic- ray flux has on our atmosphere. So much evidence has by now been amassed, in fact, that "it is unlikely that [the solar climate link] does not exist."

The sun's strong role indicates that greenhouse gases can't have much of an influence on the climate -- that C02 et al. don't dominate through some kind of leveraging effect that makes them especially potent drivers of climate change. The upshot of the Earth not being unduly sensitive to greenhouse gases is that neither increases nor cutbacks in future C02 emissions will matter much in terms of the climate.

Even doubling the amount of CO2 by 2100, for example, "will not dramatically increase the global temperature," Dr. Shaviv states. Put another way: "Even if we halved the CO2 output, and the CO2 increase by 2100 would be, say, a 50% increase relative to today instead of a doubled amount, the expected reduction in the rise of global temperature would be less than 0.5C. This is not significant."

The evidence from astrophysicists and cosmologists in laboratories around the world, on the other hand, could well be significant. In his study of meteorites, published in the prestigious journal, Physical Review Letters, Dr. Shaviv found that the meteorites that Earth collected during its passage through the arms of the Milky Way sustained up to 10% more cosmic ray damage than others. That kind of cosmic ray variation, Dr. Shaviv believes, could alter global temperatures by as much as 15% --sufficient to turn the ice ages on or off and evidence of the extent to which cosmic forces influence Earth's climate.

In another study, directly relevant to today's climate controversy, Dr. Shaviv reconstructed the temperature on Earth over the past 550 million years to find that cosmic ray flux variations explain more than two-thirds of Earth's temperature variance, making it the most dominant climate driver over geological time scales. The study also found that an upper limit can be placed on the relative role of CO2 as a climate driver, meaning that a large fraction of the global warming witnessed over the past century could not be due to CO2 -- instead it is attributable to the increased solar activity.

CO2 does play a role in climate, Dr. Shaviv believes, but a secondary role, one too small to preoccupy policymakers. Yet Dr. Shaviv also believes fossil fuels should be controlled, not because of their adverse affects on climate but to curb pollution.

Someone a lot cleverer than me........

RedPlanet

Actually i've heard different reasons for ice ages.
But one explanation for high levels of C02 accompanied with low temps on the surface, is volcanism.

fits

So you've decided that you dont want to believe something, and found an article on the internet to back up your opinion... Well done!:D

'Concrete proof' will never exist in a system so complicated as the worlds climate. There is however 'overwhelming circumstantial evidence' to make the increased greenhouse gas concentration almost certainly the cause.

So, you dont want to believe this... why? Because you want to keep driving your SUV or something? Why have you such a desire to disagree with the majority of the worlds scientists and agree with some randomer from Israel? (where else). Tbh you dont seem terribly well informed about the subject so why the reluctance?

Personally I dont think that anything less than a rapid change of all the world power stations to nuclear is going to have any significant effect, and I'd keep on driving my suv, cos its not even a drop in the ocean...

Celticfire

fits wrote:

So you've decided that you dont want to believe something, and found an article on the internet to back up your opinion... Well done!:D

And how would you back up your opinion?

'Concrete proof' will never exist in a system so complicated as the worlds climate. There is however 'overwhelming circumstantial evidence' to make the increased greenhouse gas concentration almost certainly the cause.

So why is it then that Man is "the cause" of global warming? Why not put us down as a factor of global warming instead of heaping the full blame onto us? There are plenty of other factors that should be looked at.

So, you dont want to believe this... why? Because you want to keep driving your SUV or something? Why have you such a desire to disagree with the majority of the worlds scientists and agree with some randomer from Israel? (where else). Tbh you dont seem terribly well informed about the subject so why the reluctance?

Yes I would like to continue to be able to drive my car. In case you hadn't noticed but in the budget they are planning to tax cars on their Co2 emissions. So how long then before more taxes are added on to other things like coal and home heating oil?

I might not be the best informed person in the world but I can look up information and question the rhetoric of these scientists who tell us to follow them blindly. There are plenty of extremely clever people who do not agree with them either.

Also just because a large group of scientists say it's so doesn't make it so. If you would like and example of pusdo-science look up Eugenics . This had a pretty impressive following up to world war two.

Personally I dont think that anything less than a rapid change of all the world power stations to nuclear is going to have any significant effect, and I'd keep on driving my suv, cos its not even a drop in the ocean...

True, I'd prefer to see cleaner technology used worldwide and not just to cut down on Co2 but cut down on real pollutants , poisons that are spewed into our rivers lakes and breathing air every day.

fits

Celticfire wrote:

And how would you back up your opinion?

http://www.ipcc.ch/
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/

The Hadley centre website is very good, and I've seen some of their scientists speak at conferences.

Celticfire wrote:

So why is it then that Man is "the cause" of global warming? Why not put us down as a factor of global warming instead of heaping the full blame onto us? There are plenty of other factors that should be looked at.

I've mentioned several times already man isnt the 'cause' of climate change, but is accelarating it. Do you honestly think that the people designing the GCMs dont look at other factors such as solar radiation and earths axis of rotation which also have effects. These are highly complicated mathematical models which have developed alongside computer capability.

Celticfire wrote:

Yes I would like to continue to be able to drive my car. In case you hadn't noticed but in the budget they are planning to tax cars on their Co2 emissions. So how long then before more taxes are added on to other things like coal and home heating oil?

Surely this is fair. I'd much rather my 1.9 litre diesel engine had a lower tax rate in line with say, a 1.4 litre car as I get 50 mpg out of it.

Celticfire wrote:

I might not be the best informed person in the world but I can look up information and question the rhetoric of these scientists who tell us to follow them blindly. There are plenty of extremely clever people who do not agree with them either.
Also just because a large group of scientists say it's so doesn't make it so. If you would like and example of pusdo-science look up Eugenics . This had a pretty impressive following up to world war two.

I dunno, most of the scientists I've seen disagreeing with it are funded by vested interests. No matter what the 'cause' of climate change is, nothing is going to change the fact that it is happening. I personally believe that greenhouse gases contribute significantly to it, and support any policies to address this. I dont think its a comparable science to eugenics to be quite honest.

Celticfire wrote:

True, I'd prefer to see cleaner technology used worldwide and not just to cut down on Co2 but cut down on real pollutants , poisons that are spewed into our rivers lakes and breathing air every day.

I think we are moving in this direction slowly but surely.

Celticfire

mike65 wrote:

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-02-02T142536Z_01_L01878807_RTRUKOC_0_UK-GLOBALWARMING.xml

U.N. climate panel says warming is man-made
Fri Feb 2, 2007 2:26 PM GMT

By Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle

PARIS (Reuters) - The world's top climate scientists said on Friday global warming was man-made, spurring calls for urgent government action to prevent severe and irreversible damage from rising temperatures.

The United Nations panel, which groups 2,500 scientists from more than 130 nations, predicted more droughts, heatwaves, rains and a slow gain in sea levels that could last for more than 1,000 years.


The scientists said it was "very likely" -- or more than 90 percent probable -- that human activities led by burning fossil fuels explained most of the warming in the past 50 years.


Possible signs range from drought in Australia to record high winter temperatures in Europe.

"February 2, 2007 may be remembered as the day the question mark was removed from whether (people) are to blame for climate change,"

It's reporting like this which is in the OP's post that annoys me.

piraka

fits wrote:

I've mentioned several times already man isnt the 'cause' of climate change, but is accelarating it. Do you honestly think that the people designing the GCMs dont look at other factors such as solar radiation and earths axis of rotation which also have effects. These are highly complicated mathematical models which have developed alongside computer capability.

One wonders about accuracy the GCM’s considering the level of scientific understanding (LOSU) of the majority of the climate forcings, such as you describe. are low.

Summary for Policymakers pdf Figure SPM-2 page 4

piraka

fits wrote:

I dunno, most of the scientists I've seen disagreeing with it are funded by vested interests.

Interesting analysis here

fits

piraka wrote:

One wonders about accuracy the GCM’s considering the level of scientific understanding (LOSU) of the majority of the climate forcings, such as you describe. are low.

Well they are the best tool available I guess. A huge amount of statistical and sensitivity analyses would have been carried out before they were released, as well as extensive testing against historical data.
Not really my area, but I guess with all science at this level, a certain amount of 'trust' has to be invested in the scientists involved. And all of the GCMs seem to agree that things are moving in the same direction.

fits

piraka wrote:

Interesting analysis here

Hmm, strange writing style, but I guess theres a lot of truth in what he says. I have my own opinions about some of the data I use (without giving too much away, I do use GCM data for my work). There is a lot of uncertainty involved. It seems like the general public expect the scientific community to predict exactly what will happen, and theres just no way we can do that. However all of the major GCMs, developed separately are in broad agreement with each other.
There is no doubt in my mind that research on climate change and its impacts is time well spent even if there is a lot of uncertainty involved.

piraka

fits wrote:

Not really my area, but I guess with all science at this level, a certain amount of 'trust' has to be invested in the scientists involved. And all of the GCMs seem to agree that things are moving in the same direction.

I get concerned about the “trust” in the scientists when one reads the likes of this.

piraka

Considering the amount of scientists involved in the review and the forum in which this report was delivered. Did anyone catch the basic error in the data presented

RedPlanet

Whether these thousands of scientists are right or wrong, i don't see any particularly convincing arguement to NOT drastically reduce carbon emissions.
What is so good (environmentally and ethically) about burning up these fossilized fuels?
Don't you think it's best if we try and save these resources, for our future generations for example.
Maybe they'll be needed further down the road for some unforseen reason.

fits

piraka wrote:

I get concerned about the “trust” in the scientists when one reads the likes of this.

Hmm, interesting stuff. The IPCC is indeed a massive conglomerate of scientists and one would expect stuff like this to occur. I guess there was a conflict of interest between the naturally sceptically scientist who wants to wait for a pattern to emerge, and the scientist who wants to get the seriousness of the problem across to the media.
The guy who resigned was probably right to be annoyed, however the increased hurricane activity *could* be a symptom of climate change, its just too early to say.

fits

piraka wrote:

Considering the amount of scientists involved in the review and the forum in which this report was delivered. Did anyone catch the basic error in the data presented

Eh no.. what was that.

piraka

fits wrote:

Eh no.. what was that.

I have to admit, I didn't catch either until I read about here Comment 11