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Report has 'smoking gun' on climate (IPCC's 'Mother of All Reports', look for an "iconic statement")
AP on Yahoo ^ | 1/22/07 | Seth Borenstein - ap

Posted on 01/22/2007 8:48:48 PM PST by NormsRevenge

WASHINGTON - Human-caused global warming is here, visible in the air, water and melting ice, and is destined to get much worse in the future, an authoritative global scientific report will warn next week.

"The smoking gun is definitely lying on the table as we speak," said top U.S. climate scientist Jerry Mahlman, who reviewed all 1,600 pages of the first segment of a giant four-part report. "The evidence ... is compelling."

Andrew Weaver, a Canadian climate scientist and study co-author, went even further: "This isn't a smoking gun; climate is a batallion of intergalactic smoking missiles."

The first phase of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is being released in Paris next week. This segment, written by more than 600 scientists and reviewed by another 600 experts and edited by bureaucrats from 154 countries, includes "a significantly expanded discussion of observation on the climate," said co-chair Susan Solomon, a senior scientist for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She and other scientists held a telephone briefing on the report Monday.

That report will feature an "explosion of new data" on observations of current global warming, Solomon said.

Solomon and others wouldn't go into specifics about what the report says. They said that the 12-page summary for policymakers will be edited in secret word-by-word by governments officials for several days next week and released to the public on Feb. 2. The rest of that first report from scientists will come out months later.

The full report will be issued in four phases over the year, as was the case with the last IPCC report, issued in 2001.

Global warming is "happening now, it's very obvious," said Mahlman, a former director of NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab who lives in Boulder, Colo. "When you look at the temperature of the Earth, it's pretty much a no-brainer."

Look for an "iconic statement" — a simple but strong and unequivocal summary — on how global warming is now occurring, said one of the authors, Kevin Trenberth, director of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, also in Boulder.

The February report will have "much stronger evidence now of human actions on the change in climate that's taken place," Rajendra K. Pachauri told the AP in November. Pachauri, an Indian climatologist, is the head of the international climate change panel.

An early version of the ever-changing draft report said "observations of coherent warming in the global atmosphere, in the ocean, and in snow and ice now provide stronger joint evidence of warming."

And the early draft adds: "An increasing body of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on other aspects of climate including sea ice, heat waves and other extremes, circulation, storm tracks and precipitation."

The world's global average temperature has risen about 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit from 1901 to 2005. The two warmest years on record for the world were 2005 and 1998. Last year was the hottest year on record for the United States.

The report will draw on already published peer-review science. Some recent scientific studies show that temperatures are the hottest in thousands of years, especially during the last 30 years; ice sheets in Greenland in the past couple years have shown a dramatic melting; and sea levels are rising and doing so at a faster rate in the past decade.

Also, the second part of the international climate panel's report — to be released in April — will for the first time feature a blockbuster chapter on how global warming is already changing health, species, engineering and food production, said NASA scientist Cynthia Rosenzweig, author of that chapter.

As confident as scientists are about the global warming effects that they've already documented, they are as gloomy about the future and even hotter weather and higher sea level rises. Predictions for the future of global warming in the report are based on 19 computer models, about twice as many as in the past, Solomon said.

In 2001, the panel said the world's average temperature would increase somewhere between 2.5 and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit and the sea level would rise between 4 and 35 inches by the year 2100. The 2007 report will likely have a smaller range of numbers for both predictions, Pachauri and other scientists said.

The future is bleak, scientists said.

"We have barely started down this path," said chapter co-author Richard Alley of Penn State University.

___

AP Special Correspondent Charles J. Hanley contributed to this report.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: bullshit; climatechange; dontdeny; globalwarming; humanscaused; ipcc; manbearpig; proof; smokinggun; truth
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To: NormsRevenge

Would NOAA. a government agency that relies on annual federal funding be prone to issue an everything is all OK report, or would it likely be biased to claim the atmospheric sky is falling report--and something better be done soon (by NOAA) report?

Hmmmm.


41 posted on 01/22/2007 9:50:34 PM PST by petertare (!)
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To: lostlakehiker

"No one with any CLUE is arguing. I have seen glaciers fading away, year by year. A lot of us have. The evidence is unarguable except by fools who love the sound of their own voice arguing."

Many people who do have a CLUE are arguing. The majority of them are prestigious researchers and Professors who say the ninnies espousing these theories are just that: ninnies.


42 posted on 01/22/2007 9:50:49 PM PST by Rembrandt (We would have won Viet Nam w/o Dim interference.)
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To: calcowgirl
"A number of self-described scientists are collaborating with the world's most creative fiction writers and conmen...."

As Rush is fond of saying... "It looks as if you have actually swerved right into the truth with that thought!!!"

Those "conmen" are also public policy advisers and CONsultants to Governor Schwartzenfibber!!! (who is having an undue effect on the POTUS unfortunately)

Could we get Laura's or even Barbara Bush's phone records under the FOIA? I'd like to see if Maria Shriver Schwartzenegger's phone number shows up anywhere and with what frequency!!! (I mean, we could have a First Lady Troica goin on here)

43 posted on 01/22/2007 9:53:24 PM PST by SierraWasp (Just another CA conservative floundering in the darkness of Schwartzeneggerism!!! HELP!!!)
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To: Gondring; NormsRevenge; calcowgirl
"Richard Alley of Penn State University"

""A very reasonable and bright geoscientist...not "off the deep end"..."

"The future is bleak, scientists said."

He is NOW!!!

44 posted on 01/22/2007 10:00:07 PM PST by SierraWasp (Just another CA conservative floundering in the darkness of Schwartzeneggerism!!! HELP!!!)
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To: NormsRevenge
Jerry Mahlman is the inventor of the much maligned "hockey stick" temperature graph which ignores the Medieval Warming Period and other climatic events which interfere with his cockamamie theories.
45 posted on 01/22/2007 10:03:49 PM PST by Brad from Tennessee (Anything a politician gives you he has first stolen from you)
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To: Rembrandt; lostlakehiker
My reply to all this nonsense is that

as long as we keep having weather, we will keep having predictions of imminent catastrophe!

46 posted on 01/22/2007 10:06:22 PM PST by ARepublicanForAllReasons (I hereby pledge to endeavor to eliminate most sarcasm from my posts (NOT!))
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To: NormsRevenge

I think global warming will be a good thing myself. There will be more arable land and despite rising sea levels there will be more coastal areas that you'd want to either live in or visit.


47 posted on 01/22/2007 10:10:27 PM PST by elmer fudd
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To: NormsRevenge
The report will draw on already published peer-review science.

Unfortunately, we've learned that "peer review" doesn't mean checking the math.

48 posted on 01/22/2007 10:16:13 PM PST by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: NormsRevenge

Seth Borenstein covers environment, science, health, aviation, government contracting and other technical-oriented issues. He specializes in explaining what technical issues mean to the average person.

49 posted on 01/22/2007 10:17:06 PM PST by kcvl
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To: uglybiker

It's Pure Calculated Communism.


50 posted on 01/22/2007 10:17:29 PM PST by calcowgirl ("Liberalism is just Communism sold by the drink." P. J. O'Rourke)
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To: Just sayin
He said he was told our actions are causing the worlds ice to melt. No maybe, no possibly, are.

There's been a modern melt-off going on since the mid 1700s, per the IPCC's charts.

51 posted on 01/22/2007 10:20:16 PM PST by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: Just sayin

Great story!!!


52 posted on 01/22/2007 10:20:47 PM PST by calcowgirl ("Liberalism is just Communism sold by the drink." P. J. O'Rourke)
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To: Rembrandt
Many people who do have a CLUE are arguing. The majority of them are prestigious researchers and Professors who say the ninnies espousing these theories are just that: ninnies.

There has been a pronounced warming from 1995 through 2005. That is pretty clear. Some of those years in between have been much more average. Where the debate lies is in exactly how much the warming is, and what the cause is. That 1995 and 2003 were exceptionally hot globally isn't being debated by anyone who has paid attention.

53 posted on 01/22/2007 10:23:44 PM PST by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: Brad from Tennessee
Jerry Mahlman is the inventor of the much maligned "hockey stick" temperature graph which ignores the Medieval Warming Period and other climatic events which interfere with his cockamamie theories.

Ummm. Michael Mann.

54 posted on 01/22/2007 10:24:58 PM PST by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: elmer fudd
There will be more arable land and despite rising sea levels there will be more coastal areas that you'd want to either live in or visit.

I figure the fishing should be pretty good over the Outer Manhattan Banks....

What I dread is all the coastal refugees fleeing to my neck of the woods. We don't need Libs moving here.

55 posted on 01/22/2007 10:33:34 PM PST by ApplegateRanch (Islam: a Satanically Transmitted Disease, spread by unprotected intimate contact with the Koranus.)
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To: ApplegateRanch

Don't worry. I live a mile from the beach and never hear or see any evidence of rising sea levels.


56 posted on 01/22/2007 10:42:17 PM PST by ClaireSolt (Have you have gotten mixed up in a mish-masher?)
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To: ApplegateRanch

Don't worry. I live a mile from the beach and never hear or see any evidence of rising sea levels.


57 posted on 01/22/2007 10:42:18 PM PST by ClaireSolt (Have you have gotten mixed up in a mish-masher?)
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To: DennisR

"Well, they are scientists, so they have to be right...right?"

Of course. Just like they were right when they said:
The sun revolves around the earth.
The earth is flat.
Global cooling.
And on, and on, and on.


58 posted on 01/22/2007 10:47:07 PM PST by MPJackal ("If you are not with us, you are against us.")
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To: DennisR
What is a "pear review"? :)

Review held in a pear orchard?

59 posted on 01/22/2007 11:12:52 PM PST by calex59
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To: NormsRevenge
the 12-page summary for policymakers will be edited in secret word-by-word by governments officials for several days next week and released to the public on Feb. 2

Not scientists..."government officials".

She is letting out the big secret--The IPCC is mostly a collection of bureaucrats and grantseeking whores, not reputable scientists at all. Why "edited in secret?" because they don't want inconvenient truths leaking out, such as the exposure that data and conclusions in the original "epoch-making" IPCC report were cooked in the dark of night before it was released.

60 posted on 01/22/2007 11:15:31 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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