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Scientists Detail Climate Changes, Poles to Tropics - New York Times
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Scientists Detail Climate Changes, Poles to Tropics
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Virginia Mayo/Associated Press
Martin Parry, the co-chairman of a scientific panel on climate change, presented a new report on global warming Friday
in Brussels.
By JAMES KANTER and ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: April 7, 2007
BRUSSELS, April 6 — From the poles to the tropics, the earth’s
climate and ecosystems are already being shaped by the atmospheric
buildup of greenhouse gases and face inevitable, possibly profound,
alteration, the world’s leading scientific panel on climate change said
Friday.
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In its most detailed portrait of the
effects of climate change driven by
human activities, the panel predicted
widening droughts in southern Europe and the Middle
East, sub-Saharan Africa, the American Southwest and
Mexico, and flooding that could imperil low-lying islands
and the crowded river deltas of southern Asia. It stressed
that many of the regions facing the greatest risks were
among the world’s poorest.
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And it said that while limits on smokestack and tailpipe
emissions could lower the long-term risks, vulnerable
regions must adjust promptly to shifting weather patterns,
climatic and coastal hazards, and rising seas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/07/science/earth/07climate.html?_r=1&th=&oref=slogin&emc=th&pagewanted=all
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Scientists Detail Climate Changes, Poles to Tropics - New York Times
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Without such adaptations, it said, a rise of 3 to 5 degrees
Fahrenheit over the next century could lead to the
inundation of coasts and islands inhabited by hundreds of
millions of people. But if steady investments are made in
seawalls and other coastal protections, vulnerability could
be sharply reduced.
The group, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change, also noted that the climate shifts
would benefit some regions — leading to more rainfall and
longer growing seasons in high latitudes, open Arctic
seaways and fewer deaths from the cold.
04/12/2007 01:37 PM
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The 1,572-page report, finished here on Friday, was
prepared by more than 200 scientists, and a 21-page
summary was endorsed by officials from more than 120
countries, including the United States.
The North Pole Was Here
by Andrew C. Revkin
The conclusions came after four days of revisions by
scientists and then an often rancorous all-night debate
with government officials. In a sign of shifting geopolitics
on global warming, scientists who worked on the report
criticized China for weakening some language in the
summary, while they credited the United States, which
had for years stressed uncertainty in the science, with
playing a mostly constructive role.
The panel, which has tracked research on global warming
since it was created under United Nations auspices in 1988, has sometimes been
criticized for allowing governments to shape the summaries of its periodic reviews of
climate science.
But by many accounts, it remains the closest thing to a barometer for tracking the level
of scientific understanding of the causes and consequences of global warming. In
February, the panel released its fourth summary of basic climate science, concluding
with 90 percent certainty that humans were the main cause of warming since 1950.
The new report, focusing on the effects of warming, for the first time describes how
species, water supplies, ice sheets and regional climate conditions are already responding
to the global buildup of heat. While the report said that assessing the causes of regional
climate and biological changes was particularly difficult, the authors concluded with
“high confidence” — about an 8 in 10 chance — that human-caused warming “over the
last three decades has had a discernible influence on many physical and biological
systems.”
At a news conference here, Martin Parry, the co-chairman of the team that wrote the
new report, said widespread effects were already measurable, with much more to come.
“We’re no longer arm-waving with models,” he said. “This is empirical information on
the ground.”
Reports from the panel are released only every half-decade or so, and this year’s suite of
three studies — on basic science, the effects of warming, and options for cutting
emissions — are likely to guide policymakers for years to come.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/07/science/earth/07climate.html?_r=1&th=&oref=slogin&emc=th&pagewanted=all
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Scientists Detail Climate Changes, Poles to Tropics - New York Times
04/12/2007 01:37 PM
The panel’s reports are particularly influential in international talks over climate treaties,
especially the Kyoto Protocol, whose binding limits on emissions expire in 2012. Those
limits have been rejected by the United States and China.
The report also is expected to be discussed at a summit meeting of the Group of 8
industrial powers in Germany in June, when the European Union has said it plans to
renew efforts to get the United States to do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The report said that given the current buildup of carbon dioxide and other long-lived
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, temperatures and seas would inevitably rise for
decades. The worst effects would be felt in regions that are mainly poor and already
facing dangers from existing climate and coastal hazards.
“It’s the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in
prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit,” said Rajendra K. Pachauri, the
chairman of the panel. “People who are poor are least-equipped to be able to adapt to
the impacts of climate change, and therefore in some sense this does become a global
responsibility in my view.”
Some authors said the report removed any doubt about the urgency of acting to curb
emissions of greenhouse gases.
“The warnings are clear about the scale of the projected changes to the planet,” said Bill
Hare, an author of the report and a visiting scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate
Impact Research in Germany. “Essentially there’s going to be a mass extinction within
the next 100 years unless climate change is limited,” added Dr. Hare, who previously
worked for Greenpeace.
“These impacts have been known for many years, and are now seen with greater clarity
in this report,” he said. “That clarity is perhaps the last warning we’re going to get before
we actually have to report in the next I.P.C.C. review that we’re seeing the disaster
unfolding.”
James L. Connaughton, the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental
Quality, said some of the findings in the report, particularly the prospect of intensifying
coastal damage from rising seas, were “of high concern,” but noted the panel also
foresaw benefits to agriculture in temperate regions as well.
Over all, he said, the analysis reinforced the need of industrialized countries to foster
economic growth in developing countries and thus help them to reduce their
vulnerability to climate shocks. He said billions of dollars were already flowing in
development assistance.
Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist at Princeton and an author of the report, said
it underlined the need to deal with climatic changes already under way.
“The actual outcome in terms of damages and ruined lives and costs depends heavily on
the response — the response of individuals to deal with the changes and governments to
organize and anticipate and deal with this in advance,” he said.
The meeting here dragged on in a marathon session Thursday night before Dr. Pachauri
emerged midmorning on Friday and stood on a blue armchair in front of reporters to
announce that agreement had been reached between scientists and government officials
over the final details of a 21-page summary.
Under pressure from nations including Russia, China and Saudi Arabia, the authors
said, sections on coral damage and tropical storms were softened in the summary. They
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/07/science/earth/07climate.html?_r=1&th=&oref=slogin&emc=th&pagewanted=all
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Scientists Detail Climate Changes, Poles to Tropics - New York Times
04/12/2007 01:37 PM
also got the authors to drop parts of an illustration showing how different emissions
policies might limit damage. Officials from those countries argued that data in the report
did not support the level of certainty expressed in the final draft.
But some authors were not assuaged. The final document was “much less quantified and
much vaguer and much less striking than it could have been,” said Stéphane Hallegatte,
a participant from France’s International Center for Research on the Environment and
Development.
Negotiations were also prolonged by European delegates’ demand that the final report
reflect the need to cut back on greenhouse gases — and not just adapting to new
conditions.
“Adaptation will only work if climate change is not too large and not too fast,” Mr.
Hallegatte said.
Next month, the panel will release a report on options for limiting emissions of the
greenhouse gases, and late in the year it will publish a final synthesis of its findings.
James Kanter reported from Brussels, and Andrew C. Revkin from New York.
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Past Coverage
Poor Nations to Bear Brunt as World Warms (April 1, 2007)
Top Scientists Warn of Water Shortages and Disease Linked to Global Warming (March 12, 2007)
FINDINGS; A Cool $25 Million For a Climate Backup Plan (February 13, 2007)
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