Thursday October 26 2:37 PM ET
Draft Report Shows World Getting Even
Warmer
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Greenhouse gases are making the world
even
warmer than anybody had predicted, and it is definitely 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
burning 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 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) with
land areas
affected more than ocean. 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 from 1990 to 2100. The new draft predicts a rise of
from
anywhere between 1.5 degrees 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.
``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.
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.
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