Scientists predict vanishing snow
Pastor Dale Morgan
Scientists predict vanishing snow
*
By Charles Clover, Environment Editor
Last Updated: 1:40am GMT 29/01/2007
Global temperatures could rise more than currently predicted by the end
of this century, according to the most authoritative study of climate
change so far.
Thousands of scientists involved with the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change are expected to conclude in a report to be published this
week that global average temperatures could rise by between 1 and 6.3
degrees C by 2100.
The upper end of the predicted range is half a degree higher than
previously assumed by the IPCC, set up in 1988 by the United Nations to
examine evidence of man-made global warming, and is likely to mean a far
greater temperature rise at the poles.
advertisement
A global average temperature rise of more than two degrees C is already
regarded by many scientists as dangerous to human society.
A rise of more than five degrees C would be regarded as catastrophic to
low-lying cities, which include London.
The main message to the world's politicians from the thousands of
scientists involved in the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, to be
published in Paris on Friday, will be the increased confidence attached
to the statement that the warmer temperatures of the past 50 years are
mainly attributable to man's activities.
The report comes after Tony Blair held out hopes of a major breakthrough
in a post-Kyoto climate accord in an address to the World Economic Forum
in Davos at the weekend.
He said that after talks with President Bush, the Brazilian President,
Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, and Germany's Angela Merkel, he was confident
that progress could be made at the planned G8 summit in the German
Baltic town of Heiligendamm in June.
Mr Blair said the key breakthrough was to get the developing economies
such as India, China and Brazil – which are members of the Kyoto treaty
but have no emissions reductions targets – to agree to binding
commitments for a new treaty starting in 2012.
Observers pointed out this was highly unlikely without binding
commitments from the United States, where President Bush opposes "cap
and trade" measures despite growing backing for them in the
Democrat-dominated Congress.
The IPCC report is expected to predict that snow will disappear from all
but the highest mountains, glaciers will recede and oceans will become
more acidic, eventually leading to the destruction of coral reefs.
It will say that ocean temperatures have already risen three kilometres
below the surface.
Scientists from the IPCC are expected to conclude unexpectedly that sea
level rise may be lower than predicted – 60cm by the end of this century
compared to an upper prediction of 90cm in previous assessments.
There was some controversy that the sea level predictions were not
higher but insiders point out that the cut-off point for the inclusion
of new papers was the summer and some of the latest science about the
melting of land-based ice in Antarctica was only published in October.
Even though the report itself is finalised, the language used in the
policy makers' summary – to be decided line by line in Paris this week –
remains unfixed and is likely to be fought over by scientists of
different views.
Meanwhile, there is evidence of disagreement between Europe and America
over the wording of another IPCC report, this time on mitigating climate
change, expected on May 4.
The US government has suggested that "modifying solar radiance" by the
use of giant mirrors to reflect the sun's rays could help to reduce
warming.