UN report removes all doubt on global warming

In a massive study that stitches together nearly everything that scientists know about climate change, a United Nations panel said last week there is now little doubt that the Earth is warming rapidly because of the massive amounts of oil, gasoline and coal that human beings have burned since 1750.

”The net effect of human activity since 1750 has been warming… It’s now unequivocal,” said Dr. Susan Solomon, co-chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, at the release in Paris, France this past Friday morning of the panel’s latest findings on climate change.

The report, a 21-page summary of a 1,000-page study that will be published later this month, states what the UN panel has never before conceded. They are now 90-per-cent certain that human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, is warming the planet at rate not seen for at least 10,000 years.

And they concluded that the greenhouse effect is real. Gases in the upper sections of earth’s atmosphere, especially extra amounts of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide produced by human activity, trap heat from the sun and radiate it back to the Earth in a manner similar to the glass walls of a greenhouse.

“Warming of the climate system is now unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global sea level,” the report says.

The panel’s summary also confirms what the Arctic Council’s Arctic Climate Impact Assessment found in 2004: that the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet.

They found that the last time the Earth’s polar regions were significantly warmer than they are now was 125,000 years ago.

“I think the debate is over,” said Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the former president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, and a prominent climate change activist.

Watt-Cloutier said those who once denied global warming, or who denied that global warming is caused by fossil fuel emissions, must either change their positions or lose credibility.

“I think people are finally going to say ‘we get it,’ let’s now take action to start the movement on the drastic cuts that everyone has been trying to get the world to do. In our world, in the Arctic, we’ve been saying that for a long time,” Watt-Cloutier said.

Although scientists have been issuing warnings about global warming for at least two decades, this may be the year that it became a political issue for ordinary people.

Watt-Cloutier says this is forcing all politicians to make a show of their concern for global warming, whether they believe in the science or not.

Though she didn’t mention them by name, she alluded to Canada’s ruling Conservative government. Once cool to the idea of imposing strict limits on carbon dioxide emissions, the Tories are now working with the New Democratic Party to create an improved Clean Air Act that includes measures to curb Canada’s out-of-control carbon dioxide emissions.

“I think some are now going to use it in their political platform in our own country, even though they were not very environmentally friendly before, I think that’s in large part because the citizens of Canada are backing this and they need to back it if they want to get re-elected,” Watt-Cloutier said.

The IPCC’s session in Paris last week attracted about 300 delegates representing 113 nations. Their report on the physical science of climate change was a global effort, combining work done by more than 600 researchers from more than 40 countries.

Their report is considered to be a moderate document, representing a negotiated consensus.

Their report finds that:

* average Arctic temperatures increased at almost twice the global average rate in the past 100 years;
* satellite data since 1978 shows that annual average Arctic sea ice extent has shrunk by 2.1 to 3.3 per cent every 10 years, with larger decreases in summer of 7.4 to 9.8 per cent for each decade;
* temperatures at the top of the permafrost layer have generally increased since the 1980s in the Arctic by up to 3°C and the maximum area covered by seasonally frozen ground has decreased by about 7 per cent in the northern hemisphere since 1900, with a decrease in spring of up to 15 per cent;
* glaciers and snow levels have declined in both hemispheres;
* ice sheet losses in Greenland and Antarctica have led to increased sea levels;
* greenhouse gas emissions increased by 20 per cent between 1995 and 2005, the largest increase in history;
* eleven of the past 12 years rank among the 12 warmest years since 1850;
* between 1906 and 2005, the Earth warmed between .56 to .92 degrees;
* ice core samples show the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide in 2005 exceeds by the far the natural range over the last 650,000 years;
* global warming is causing more extreme weather: droughts, heavy precipitation, heat waves, and more intense tropical storms.

For the future, they predict that:

* by the year 2099, the planet’s average surface temperature will rise by a minimum of 1.8°C and a maximum of 6.4°C;
* at current rates of carbon dioxide production, the planet on average will get warmer by .2°C per decade;
* even if carbon dioxide emissions are frozen at year 2000 levels, the planet will still get warmer by .1 degree per decade;
* by 2099, sea levels will rise by between .26 and .59 metres.