The IPCC Climate Report warns that humans are driving the crisis
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New United Nations Climate Report they were released on Monday morning he explains in stern terms how climate change is already wreaking havoc in the world, and warns that additional warming will only fuel extreme disasters.
“There is no doubt that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, the ocean and the earth,” according to a summary that distills the report’s conclusions. “Man-made climate change is causing a lot of weather and climate extremes in all regions around the world.”
It is part of the pending report sixth climate assessment Released by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it provides the broadest scientific perspective on the effects of the climate crisis to date and examines how it could still be bad.
The latest report differs from previous versions in that it explicitly points to the cause of the climate crisis: human-caused climate pollution. Without limiting humans to emitting carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases, the report warns that deadly heat waves, heavy rains, droughts and other disasters will be more intense and frequent.
Hundreds of scientists from around the world contributed to the report and its key findings, which are outlined in a summary of policy makers. Additional reports will be released in the next year and a half: a second report will examine who is most vulnerable to ongoing climate impacts and how to better prepare for them, while a third will focus on how to prevent further warming.
Declaring human activity to be the ultimate culprit is “the strongest statement the IPCC has ever made,” Ko Barrett, IPCC vice president and chief climate adviser to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in a press release Sunday.
The findings of the new report are likely to increase the pressure on world leaders to meet in Glasgow in November as part of their involvement in the Paris climate deal.
If the countries of the world come together and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to zero net emissions by 2050 – the goal of the Paris climate agreement – the rise in global temperature and other climate impacts could slow down and even reverse, according to the report.
Now aggressive action can ensure that “these next two decades can be our last,” said Kim Cobb, another author of the report and a climate teacher at Georgia Tech, in a press conference. “That’s what’s important for me to consider here.”
Summer has been a long series of disasters. A the heat wave broke the record he killed hundreds In the Pacific Northwest and Canada. Extreme floods in Germany More than 100 people were killed and hundreds more disappeared. Thousands moved floods in China. Meanwhile, constant fires they are raging all over the world, on the one hand California to Greece to Siberia.
Disasters are becoming more frequent and intense, just one of the ways the IPCC report says the planet has been transformed as a result of climate change:
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Global surface temperatures so far they have risen about 1.1 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times. This rate of human-induced warming is unprecedented for at least 2,000 years.
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Heat waves and precipitation events have become more frequent and intense throughout the world.
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Droughts they are also increasing.
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The upper levels of the ocean have also warmed, the acidification of the ocean has increased and there has been a drop in Arctic sea ice.
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Sea heat waves have doubled in frequency since the 1980s.
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Global sea levels have already risen about half a foot, and the speed of the rising sea is increasing, as the melting glaciers and the waters of the oceans spread with heat. The rate of sea level rise seen since 1900 is the fastest in at least 3,000 years.
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And simultaneous shrinking so many glaciers There is no precedent in the world for at least the last 2,000 years of Earth’s history.
And if humans don’t stop emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, it’s much worse.
“With each additional increase in global warming, extreme changes are on the rise,” according to the summary report. Extreme heat events, such as heat waves, that occur on average every 10 years in a human-free climate-changing world, occur approximately 2.8 times a decade.
And if the planet continues to heat up, so be it deadly events it will even be more likely. With 1.5 degrees Celsius warming, extreme heat waves and other events could occur 4.1 times a decade, according to the report, and a 2-degree warming could increase the frequency 5.6 times. The most disturbing scenario, with 4-degree warm-ups, would be deadly heat events roughly every year.
And it’s not just extreme heat. With 0.5 degrees Celsius overheating, the IPCC report warns that the frequency and intensity of heavy rains is expected to increase, as well as organic farming and droughts. Increased warming leads to an increased likelihood of catastrophes at the same time, such as heat waves and droughts occurring at the same time.
But while things may go wrong, the report stresses that it could also have some consequences for swift and aggressive action against climate change. An effort to get out of the air not only by emitting greenhouse gases, but also by achieving negative emissions, would encourage surface temperatures and acidification of surface oceans.
Unfortunately, all the effects of the climate cannot be stopped. For example, a rise in global sea level is inevitable today. “Sea level change by the middle of the century, around 2050, has been largely blocked,” said Bob Kopp, author of the summary report. “Regardless of how much we lower our emissions, we’ll probably have about 15 to 30 centimeters, or about 6 to 12 inches, of rising global sea levels.”
Beyond this point, he added, “sea level projections are becoming increasingly sensitive to the emissions options we are currently experiencing.” Below 2 degrees, sea level will rise by about 1.5 meters by 2100; Below 4 degrees, the water level can rise by more than 2 feet in this century.
“It’s possible to anticipate a lot of serious impacts, but it really requires an unprecedented transformative change,” Barrett said. “I think there’s still a way to go. It’s a point that should give us some hope.”
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