Asunto: | [LEA] Draft Report Shows World Getting Even Warmer (by Reuters) | Fecha: | Jueves, 26 de Octubre, 2000 19:10:17 (-0400) | Autor: | Jorge Hinestroza <Jorge_Hinestroza @.....net>
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By Reuters
Thursday, Oct. 26, 2000
Draft Report Shows World Getting Even Warmer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Greenhouse gases are
making the
world even warmer than anybody had
predicted, and it is almost
certainly the fault of humans, a draft
report from an
international climate group concludes.
The report, from the United
Nations-sponsored
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), predicts that
the average global temperature could be as
much as 11 degrees F
(6 degrees C) higher at the end of the
century than it was in
1990.
That is a bigger change than what the world
has seen since
the end of the last Ice Age and could lead
to chaotic weather,
with storms, flooding and severe droughts.
Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are
produced by
using fossil fuels such as gasoline and
coal, burning forests
and other activities.
The report is the strongest word yet from
the IPCC, which
groups 2,500 of the world's top climate
scientists. Their last
report in 1995 said there was a
"discernible human influence'
on climate.
The new draft strengthens the language,
saying "there is
now stronger evidence for a human
influence" and revises
upwards the estimates on how warm the Earth
is going to get.
"In 1995, we said since 1860 there had been
a 0.3 to 0.6
degree C rise," one source familiar with
the report, who asked
not to be named, said.
"Now it is 0.4 to 0.8 degrees C (0.7 to 1.4
degrees F). The
observed change is somewhat larger."
This is the same as given in a major report
issued in
January by the U.S. National Academy of
Science's National
Research Council (NRC).
"That's largely because the last few years
have been very
warm. As the report itself says, the last
decade was certainly
the warmest in 1,000 years," the source
said.
In 1995, the IPCC projected a 1.0 to 3.5 C
increase in
average global temperature between 1990 to
2100. The new draft
predicts a rise of from anywhere between
1.5 and 6 C.
Robert Watson, the Washington, D.C.-based
chairman of the
IPCC, said the report, leaked to several
news organizations,
was only a draft and was subject to change.
"This is the summary of a report prepared
by hundreds of
scientists throughout the world," Watson
said in a telephone
interview.
"It is indeed still a draft document
subject to change
after government review."
REPORT TO BE APPROVED IN JANUARY
He said the report, which is
several hundred pages long,
had been prepared by "hundreds of
scientists" and reviewed
twice, by climate experts and by
governments.
"It has been revised, and has now been
released to
governments for their final review," Watson
said.
He suggested it would be subject to close
scrutiny and
considerable discussion.
"There will be a meeting of all the
governments of the
world, plus some of the scientists that
prepared the reports,
in China in the middle of January for final
review and
approval. It will literally be a
word-by-word approval."
Since the last IPCC report was issued in
1995, many studies
have shown that global warming is even more
serious than had
been believed, and many showed definitive
links with
human-produced chemicals such as carbon
dioxide.
Several reports have concluded that global
temperature took
a sudden upward turn at around the turn of
the last century,
when the Industrial Revolution reached its
peak and people
started pumping greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere.
The January NRC report estimated that in
the last 20 years,
the earth's surface temperature rose by
0.25 to 0.4 C (0.5 to
0.7 F).
While the numbers seem small, they refer to
average global
temperatures. Actual variations will be
much more extreme
locally, and scientists say higher
temperatures have already
started to cause strong hurricanes, severe
floods and
devastating droughts.
Ice shelves in the Antarctic have started
to break off and,
if the trend continues, many low-lying
coastal areas could be
flooded.
A report by the U.S. National Oceanic and
Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) that found the cycles
of the Pacific El
Nino current, blamed for disrupting weather
worldwide, have
become more frequent and progressively
warmer -- just as global
temperatures have risen overall on average.
Small and subtle changes in the sun's
radiation may also
contribute, scientists say.
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