IPCC climate report: Scientist's worry ahead of release

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IPCC climate report: Scientist's worry ahead of release

The latest update on the state of the world's climate will be released on Friday in Stockholm, Sweden.

Scientists and government officials from 195 countries have been meeting all week ahead of the publication from the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The report will detail the physical evidence behind global warming.

Delegates were discussing late into the night on Thursday the final wording of a summary for policymakers.


Drafts of this dense, complex document seen by the BBC indicate that scientists are more convinced than ever that the planet is warming and that humans are responsible for the majority of it, especially over the past 50 years.

This message is likely to be backed up by improved observations of changes in polar ice, sea level and temperature.

However, some projections of future temperature rise are likely to be lowered from the previous IPCC report in 2007. This is because of a hiatus, or pause, in warming that has occurred since 1998.

Nonetheless, Prof Jean Pascal van Ypersele, the vice-chairman of the IPCC, emphasised that the panel's statements were robust, and raised the concern that the target of staying below a 2 degrees Celsius rise in global temperatures was becoming increasingly difficult to attain.

"Any reasonable scientist has to be more worried if they have to answer the question of how to stabilise climate to a level of warming that is not considered dangerous by policymakers," he told BBC News.

BBC News - IPCC climate report: Scientist's worry ahead of release
 
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Climate sceptics claim warming pause backs their view

In the run up to a key global warming report, those sceptical of mainstream opinion on climate change claim they are "winning" the argument.

They say a slowing of temperature rises in the past 15 years means the threat from climate change is exaggerated.

But a leading member of the UN's panel on climate change said the views of sceptics were "wishful thinking".
The pause in warming was a distraction, he said, from the growing scientific certainty about long-term impacts.

Prof Jean Pascal van Ypersele spoke to BBC News ahead of the release of a six-yearly status report into global warming by the UN panel known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.Scientists and government representatives are currently meeting in Stockholm, Sweden, going through the dense, 31-page summary of the state of the physical science behind climate change.

When it is released on Friday, the report is likely to state with even greater certainty than before that the present-day, rapid warming of the planet is man-made.

BBC News - Climate sceptics claim warming pause backs their view
 

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