The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an organization established by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) 25 years ago. Its purpose is to assess the science behind climate change and its environmental and socio-economic impact. The IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) called Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis was released September 27th 2013. This work was made by the cooperation of hundreds of scientists all around the world to comprehensively report all scientific knowledge related to climate change. Their last report on climate change was made in 2007 This report establishes these facts:
- Climate change is still "unequivocal"
- The last three decades has been the warmest of the last 1400 years
- Since the 19th century, sea levels have been rising faster the mean rate during the previous two millennia
- Glaciers, ice, and snow continue melting almost worldwide over the last two decades
- These trends coincide with the rising of greenhouse gasses
- The current level of greenhouse gasses is the largest it has been since the last 800,000 years
- Human influence on climate change is definite
Quote:
"...you'll notice that there is no scenario I've mentioned where the average temperatures are lower. That's because the report says that literally no matter what we do, most aspects of climate change will persist for many centuries even if emissions of CO2 were to stop today." - Hank Green
Personal Thoughts:
This report is scary because it predicts that climate change is pretty much irreversible and bound to get worse. It almost deters our belief that our actions can really benefit the environment. However, I think that the only reason climate change is worsening is because there are people who don't realize that indeed we are the cause, but we can also be the saviors.
Citation:
"Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis." IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Ipcc, 27 Sept. 2013. Web. 20 Oct. 2013.
Links:
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/#.UmQeUvnryNI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGG7JGT4Fdo
Wow, that report is scary! It shows how much we are hurting the environment because even if emissions of CO2 were to stop global warming would continue for hundreds of years. Imagine what will happen if we don't lower carbon emissions...
ReplyDeleteI feel like people do realize that we are the cause of the global warming, but it's a matter of whether or not they choose to do anything about it. It truly is terrifying to think that even if CO2 emissions were to stop today then the numbers would still rise.
ReplyDelete