MOO Reports:
How will climate change affect us in the future?
This report
is by Peter Dray, who often contributes to MOO.
Later this year,
the IPCC will publish their latest reports. These will tell
us what scientists currently think about the earth’s rising
temperatures and how they will affect us. A rise in the
level of carbon dioxide in the air and a rise in sea level
are just two ways we might be affected. To celebrate the
findings, Moo examines the last findings that were published
in 1995 by IPCC. Keep checking MOO in the future to see
what the latest report says!
In 1995,
the scientists who contributed to the IPCC report made several
conclusions. They said that a natural ‘global warming’ occurs
due to the short wave radiation that comes from the Sun.
The worrying sign to them was the build up of ‘Greenhouse
Gases’ that allowed less radiation to leave the earth -
hence the earth would slowly warm up. The IPCC concluded
with confidence that the concentration of Greenhouse Gases
was increasing - they also stated that the warming effect
would not be easy to stop due to the time lag between cutting
emissions (like CFCs) and the atmosphere responding.
The IPCC
also made what it called ‘firm judgments’ which were accepted
by its members. It worked out that world temperature has
risen about 0.5 degree since 1900 and sea level had risen
15cm. These differences are thought to be mainly due to
natural factors. The IPCC also said that there is no firm
evidence that world temperatures are more variable than
before.
With these
conclusions and judgments, the scientists made a number
of predictions, which can be summarized as follows:
-
With
no restrictions limiting emissions of Greenhouse Gases,
world temperature will increase at a rate of about
0.3 degrees per decade.
-
Even
with a high amount of controls placed, the world temperature
will still increase at a rate of about 0.1 degrees
per decade.
-
The
temperate rise will not be equal globally - the land
warms more quickly than the sea and high latitudes
will warm more quickly. Rises in Southern Europe and
Central America will be quicker than the average,
and will be accompanied by drier conditions than at
present.
-
The
prediction of sea level for 2100 will be about 60cm
than at present; due to the melting of the polar ice
caps and due to thermal expansion of the oceans because
of the warmer temperature.
The IPCC
admitted that further investigation had to be carried out
to understand various phenomena. It ordered more experiments
to understand these. The main uncertainties were the properties
of Greenhouse Gases, how cloud cover might change, the influence
of the oceans in temperature rises and how carbon dioxide
levels might change. It is thought that a large amount of
work has been undertaken on the latter of these - we shall
soon see in the new report. The group also said that more
readings needed to be taken on a global basis, especially
in developing countries which were under-represented in
the readings up to that point. The group also agreed to
push governments into commissioning more research.
What will
the new report say? Find out and get the first analysis
here on MOO!
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