IPCC Draft Report Conclusions - The Short Version - Nunatsiaq News

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Man-made pollution is driving global warming, and the scale of the warming is now more intense than at any time over the past 20,000 years, according to a draft report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The draft report says:

Arctic sea ice has shrunk by 2.7 per cent per decade since 1978 and by 7.4 per cent each decade during the summer months: "the smallest extent of summer sea ice was observed in 2005";

Five of the six warmest years have occurred in the past five years, with 2005 and 1998 being the two warmest years on record;

Global average sea levels rose at a rate of about two mm a year between 1961 and 2003, and by an average of more than three mm a year between 1993 and 2003;

Melting glaciers and polar ice sheets could cause sea levels to rise by up to 43 cm by 2100, and the increase for the next 200 years is predicted to be nearly double that figure;

Mountain glaciers and polar land ice have, in general, melted faster than they have formed over the past 40 years;

Permafrost temperatures have increased, and the area covered by seasonally frozen ground has decreased by about seven per cent over the past 50 years.

The draft report concludes there is now overwhelming evidence to show that the global climate is changing because of human activity.
And it says climate change will continue for decades and perhaps centuries if man-made greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced.

The draft report says concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases are at the highest for at least 650,000 years. It predicts that global average temperatures will rise by between 2 C and 4.5 C by 2100 as a result of the doubling of carbon dioxide levels caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

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