Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. 24/7 Space News .




CLIMATE SCIENCE
UN panel in final push for new climate report
by Staff Writers
Stockholm (AFP) Sept 26, 2013


Scientists and governments pored over the summary Thursday of an eagerly awaited UN report expected to emphasise the escalating threat from climate change.

To be released in Stockholm on Friday, it will be the Nobel-winning panel's first overview since 2007 of the scientific evidence for climate change.

A draft of the summary seen by AFP declares with the greatest emphasis to date that climate change is on the march and humans are responsible for it.

The report "will fire the starting gun" for negotiations on reaching a new global pact by the end of 2015 on curbing greenhouse gases, said Tim Gore of Oxfam International.

Those talks are supposed to enact a UN goal of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

But the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report will indicate that this goal can only be secured though a herculean effort to save energy or switch to cleaner sources.

Only one of the scenarios postulated in the report sees any possibility of safely anchoring the temperature rise to within 2 C by 2100.

It would require fossil-fuel emissions -- scaling new peaks almost every year -- to top out in 2020, then drastically decline over the next half-century.

In the worst projection, however, warming will be about 5.6 C (10.1 F) compared to the pre-industrial yardstick.

The report will predict sea levels to rise by between 26 and 81 centimetres (10.4 and 32.4 inches) by 2100, according to the draft.

In its last big review, published six years ago, the Nobel-winning group projected an 18-59 cm (7.2-23.6 inch) rise by 2100.

The big change comes from new evidence of melting from parts of the giant icesheets that smother Greenland and Antarctica.

The key document being unveiled on Friday is a 31-page summary of a massive technical text, the first volume of the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report.

Governments around the world have a seat on the IPCC, and can vet the summary, given its implications for how states will address climate change. They cannot amend the main text, though.

Nations have called on scientists to tidy up a key section of the report to clarify why, over the past 15 years, temperatures have risen far slower than some computer models have suggested.

That phenomenon has been seized upon by sceptics to say that climate science is flawed or that global warming is a fraud by the green lobby.

Scientists attribute the "pause" to several factors, including variations in Earth's own climate system that are temporary but complex and still poorly understood.

'No sticking points'

The textual issue over this has been settled to the satisfaction of all, but delegates still have to pore over many other proposed amendments before the summary can be approved, said a source.

The challenge is "the volume of work, especially of the desire of some countries to get clarity," the delegate said. "But currently there are no sticking points."

As a political issue, climate change is in the doldrums.

A first attempt was made at a summit in Copenhagen in 2009 for a deal to tame carbon emissions and help poor countries exposed to worsening droughts, storms and floods.

That event was a near-fiasco and led to the goal being postponed to 2015. Today, willingness for concessions is low, especially in countries still struggling after the 2008 financial crisis.

Some experts say the IPCC report will be too conservative. "They (in the IPCC) are so nervous now," said one, referring to damage done to the panel's reputation when several errors were found in its landmark 2007 overview.

But the fact that the summary is explicitly approved by governments gives the report special weight, say others.

"These negotiations can be seen as the place where communications, science and politics meet," said Vanessa Bulkacz of Climate Action Network Europe, an alliance of green groups.

"After that, it's up to governments to use these persistent scientific facts as a springboard for real climate action."

.


Related Links
Climate Science News - Modeling, Mitigation Adaptation






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








CLIMATE SCIENCE
Warming 'pause' gives thought for scientists, sceptics
Paris (AFP) Sept 24, 2013
A slowdown in warming that has provided fuel for climate sceptics is one of the thorniest issues in a report to be issued by UN experts on Friday. Over the past 15 years, the world's average surface temperature rose far slower than many climate models have predicted. According to projections, global warming should go in lockstep with the ever-rising curve of heat-trapping carbon emission ... read more


CLIMATE SCIENCE
China unveils its first and unnamed moon rover

Mission to moon will boost research and awareness

Mighty Eagle Improves Autonomous Landing Software With Successful Flight

Watch Out for the Harvest Moon

CLIMATE SCIENCE
Water for future Mars astronauts

NASA Mars rover Curiosity finds water in first sample of planet surface

Science Benefits From Diverse Landing Area Of NASA Mars Rover

First scoop of Mars soil contains 2 percent water: study

CLIMATE SCIENCE
Astronauts Practice Launching in NASA's New Orion Spacecraft

"GRAVITY" is Almost Here

International Partnership Releases Space Exploration Benefits Paper

Iran to send second monkey into space

CLIMATE SCIENCE
Chinese VP stresses peaceful use of space

China's space station to open for foreign peers

Last Days for Tiangong

China civilian technology satellites put into use

CLIMATE SCIENCE
Unmanned cargo ship docks with orbiting Space Station

New space crew joins ISS on Olympic torch mission

Station Crew Readies for Cygnus' Sunday Arrival

American, two Russians take shortcut to space

CLIMATE SCIENCE
ILS Proton Successfully Launches ASTRA 2E for SES

APSCC 2013 reaffirms Arianespace's focus on the Asia-Pacific region

Arianespace and Astrium sign deal to begin production of 18 new Ariane 5 vehicles

Problems with Proton booster fixed

CLIMATE SCIENCE
How Engineers Revamped Spitzer to Probe Exoplanets

ESA selects SSTL to design Exoplanet satellite mission

Coldest Brown Dwarfs Blur Lines between Stars and Planets

NASA-funded Program Helps Amateur Astronomers Detect Alien Worlds

CLIMATE SCIENCE
NGC Completes Safety of Flight Testing on Common Infrared Countermeasure System

Green photon beams more agile than optical tweezers

Space oddity: the mystery of 2013 QW1

Domain walls as new information storage medium




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement