The new IPCC Report on climate change is out. The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), compiled by hundreds of volunteer climate and atmospheric scientists, is meant to provide a clear view of the current state of scientific knowledge relevant to climate change. Here are 2 x takeaways: 1. The panel found that "[i]t is extremely likely [95% certainty] that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century." This is a notch up from the "very likely" [90% certainty] language of the previous report. 2. The panel set an "upper limit" for emissions from the burning of carbon in order to avoid the worst effects of global warming. As the nytimes reports: "To stand the best chance of keeping the planetary warming below an internationally agreed target of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above the level of preindustrial times, the [IPCC] found, no more than one trillion metric tons of carbon can be burned and the resulting gas released into the atmosphere. Just over half that amount has already been emitted since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and at the rate energy consumption is growing, the trillionth ton will be released somewhere around 2040, according to calculations by Myles R. Allen, a scientist at the University of Oxford and one of the authors of the new report. More than three trillion tons of carbon are still left in the ground as fossil fuels." nytimes/2013/09/28/science/global-climate-change-report.html?hp&_r=0 Report can be viewed @ ipcc.ch/
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 19:06:46 +0000
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