From: "Integrity Research Institute, Thomas Valone" <iri@...>
To: "Andrew Michrowski" <paceinc@...>
Subject: Washingtonpost.com Article from IRI on Warming
Date: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 9:57 PM

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http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30706-2001Jan22.html


Scientists Issue Dire Prediction On Warming

BEIJING, Jan. 22 -- In the most forceful warning yet on the threat of global
warming, an international panel of hundreds of scientists issued a report today
predicting brutal droughts, floods and violent storms across the planet over
the next century because air pollution is causing surface temperatures to rise
faster than anticipated. The report, approved unanimously at a U.N. conference
in Shanghai and described as the most comprehensive study on the subject to
date, says that Earth's average temperature could rise by as much as 10.4
degrees
over the next 100 years -- the most rapid change in 10 millennia and more than
60 percent higher than the same group predicted less than six years ago. If
new scientific models are accurate, rising temperatures will melt polar ice
caps and raise sea levels by as much as 34 inches, causing floods that could
displace tens of millions of people in low-lying areas -- such as China's Pearl
River Delta, much of Bangladesh and the most densely populated area of Egypt.
Droughts will parch farmlands and aggravate world hunger. Storms triggered by
such climatic extremes as El Niño will become more frequent. Diseases such as
malaria and dengue fever will spread. "The scientific consensus presented in
this comprehensive report about human-induced climate change should sound alarm
bells in every national capital and in every local community," said Klaus
Topfler,
head of the U.N. Environment Program. "We should start preparing ourselves."
The report was drafted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group
of hundreds of scientists established by the United Nations in 1988 to assess
warming. The Shanghai survey relies on complex new computer simulations based
on weather records from the last 150 years, as well as data collected from ice
corings, coral and tree rings -- all of which can provide information on climate
going back millions of years. The results of the new models persuaded the panel
to declare unequivocally for the first time that mankind is responsible for
global warming rather than changes brought by the sun or other natural factors.
"We see changes in climate, we believe we humans are involved, and we're
projecting
future climate changes much more significant over the next 100 years than the
last 100 years," said Robert T. Watson, an American scientist who is chairman
of the panel. The report cited "new and stronger evidence that most of the
observed
warming of the last 50 years is attributable to human activities," primarily
the burning of oil, gasoline and coal, which produces carbon dioxide and other
gases that trap heat in Earth's atmosphere. Carbon dioxide levels have increased
by 31 percent over the past 250 years, reaching a concentration unseen on the
planet in 420,000 years and perhaps as far back as 20 million years, the report
said. In 1995, by contrast, the panel reported only a "discernible human
influence"
on global warming. At that time, the group predicted a temperature rise of no
more than 6.3 degrees by 2100. The panel raised that prediction by more than
4 degrees in part because successful efforts to reduce the air pollutant sulfur
dioxide, a common element of smog, have had the unintended effect of reducing
particles in the air that help deflect the sun's rays, the report said. The
global warming issue has proved highly contentious among environmental
scientists,
with many respected figures arguing that Earth undergoes periodic climatic
changes
with or without contributions from mankind. Fred Singer, professor emeritus
of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and former director
of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service, called the new report "a political
statement"
based on theoretical models that does not conform to existing scientific data
from thermometers at weather stations, Earth-circling satellites and
high-altitude
balloons. Almost all instrumental data, he said, show no warming trend in the
past 60 years, and he called data that do "suspect." But David Easterling,
principal
scientist at the Commerce Department's National Climate Data Center, noted that
reductions in airborne sulfates, which act to cool temperatures, are expected
this century because of such factors as the burning of cleaner coal. He called
the "physics pretty well established." The new calculations add urgency to
international
treaty talks on curbing greenhouse gas emissions that collapsed in November
as participants disagreed over how to cut such emissions under a commitment
made by industrialized countries in 1997. Negotiations have been complicated
by a U.S.-led effort to soften the impact of required cuts by adjusting for
the amount of carbon dioxide that is absorbed by each nation's forests and
farmlands.
New climate talks are scheduled in Germany in May. "Only a few countries, such
as Britain and Germany, are on track to meet their targets," said Watson, who
is the chief science adviser to the World Bank. "The United States is way off
meeting its targets." The United States is the largest producer of greenhouse
gases, accounting for a quarter of the world total. China ranks second, but
its per capita amount is relatively low.

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Thomas Valone, MA, PE
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Integrity Research Institute
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