ThinkConstructive

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific intergovernmental body tasked to evaluate the risk of climate change caused by human activity. It was established in 1988 by two United Nation organisations, and produces special assessment reports every six years, based on the latest peer reviewed and published scientific literature on climate change.

The last assessment report (the fourth) was published in 2007 and the next is scheduled for 2013. This month, a special interim report, the The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Climate Science Report, was published by the University of New South Wales (Australia) Climate Change Research Centre, ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen (Denmark) that takes place in December 2009.

This special report took a year to make and was authored by 26 researchers, most of whom are authors of published IPCC reports. This report is an update to new scientific results from research since the 2007 assessment.

You can download the full report (high resolution PDF 23.3MB, low resolution PDF 3.3 MB) or read it online. You can also read the executive summary in 11 languages (executive summary in English, 166KB).

The results of the report include

1. Greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide and methane) in the atmosphere have been increasing. The current concentration of CO2 is the highest in, at least, the last 800.000 years (currently oldest ice cores from Antarctica, expecting to find even older ice cores soon). The current concentration of CO2 is 385 parts per million (ppm), which is 105 ppm above the natural pre-industrial level. The rate of increase also went up; we put CO2 in the atmosphere faster than we did in the 1990s.
2. Every year this century (2001-2008) has been among the top 10 warmest years since instrumental records began, despite solar irradiance being relatively weak over the past few years.
3. It has been reaffirmed that the human influence with increase greenhouse gases is the source of the global warming.
4. Global warming brings on more extreme weather events.
5. There is a large potential source of CO2 and CH4 (methane) in the Northern Hemisphere permafrost (permanently frozen ground). If the permafrost gets warmer, even more of these two greenhouse gases will be release to the atmosphere.
6. Glaciers and ice-caps (does not include Greenland, Antarctica, etc) are melting fast, currently at 1.2mm per year, and have the capacity to raise global sea-level by 70cm.
7. Greenland has enough ice that if completely melted, can raise global sea level to 6.6 meters. Currently, Greenland contributes 0.7mm per year in the increase of global sea level rise. The melting is accelerating.
8. Antarctica has enough ice that if completely melted, can raise global sea level to 52.8 meters. Currently, Antarctica contributes about 0.7mm per year in the global sea level rise. The melting is accelerating.
9. The oceans are warming; the global ocean surface temperature reached the warmest ever recorded for each month of the summer of 2009.
10. Satellite measurements show sea-level is rising in total at 3.4 mm per year since these records began in 1993. The current estimates show that we could expect up to 2 metres global sea-level rise by 2100.
11. There exist global amplifying feedbacks, where the change of the climate in a part of the world can change the climate even further. For example, the loss of the permafrost in Siberia can release the carbon from the ground (estimated to 500Gt), which can further contribute to global warming.

Unless drastic measures are taken to limit greenhouse gases, global warming will be the cause for the rise of the global sea-level and the change of the climate in parts of the world.

Drastic measures must be taken, such as limiting the use of fossil fuels in favour of alternative energy sources, so that greenhouse gases stop increasing.