Nairobi, Kenya, Nov 13: A long-awaited report by
an international scientific network will offer much stronger
evidence of how man is changing Earth's climate, and should
prompt balky governments into action against global warming,
the group's chief scientist said today.
The upcoming, multi-volume U.N. assessment on melting
ice caps and rising seas, with authoritative new data on how
the world has warmed ``might provide just the right impetus to
get the negotiations going in a more purposeful way,''
Rajendra K. Pachauri said in an interview midway through the
annual two-week U.N. Climate conference.
The Indian climatologist is chairman of the
intergovernmental panel on climate change, a global network
of some 2,000 climate and other scientists that regularly
assesses the state of research into how carbon dioxide and
other heat-trapping gases produced by industry and other
human activities are affecting the climate.
In its pivotal third assessment, in 2001, the panel
concluded that most global warming temperatures rose an
average 0.6 degrees celsius in the past century was likely the
result of such manmade greenhouse gases.
In its fourth assessment, to be issued in installments
beginning next February, ``there's much stronger evidence now
of human actions on the change in climate that's taken
place,'' Pachauri said.
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol requires 35 industrialized
nations to reduce their greenhouse emissions by 5 percent
below 1990 levels by 2012. The United States and Australia
are the only major industrial nations to reject Kyoto. U.S.
President George W. Bush contends the emissions cuts would
harm the U.S. economy.
Here at the Nairobi Conference, Kyoto parties are
discussing what kind of timetables and quotas should follow
that pact's expiration in 2012.
They also are weighing ways to draw the united
states, the world's biggest carbon dioxide emitter, into a
mandatory system of emissions caps. Many look toward the
scientists' upcoming assessment for support.
``It's bound to have a major impact,'' Pachauri said.
He said the heavily detailed document will offer
significantly more evidence on sea-level rise, the melting of
glaciers and the growing scarcity of water. He didn't discuss
those details, since the fourth assessment report is still in
the draft stage. But it may likely cite such recent research
findings as:
World temperatures have risen to levels not seen in
at least 12,000 years, propelled by rapid warming the past 30
years.
Greenland's ice mass has been melting at what NASA
calls a ``dramatic'' rate of 170 cubic kilometers per year,
far surpassing the gain of 58 cubic kilometers per year from
snowfall.
The levels of oceans, expanding from warmth and from
land-ice runoff, have risen at a rate of about 2 millimeters
a year between 1961 and 2003, and by more than 3 millimeters
a year in 1993-2003.
Pachauri said increasingly powerful supercomputers
allow scientists to run more accurate models of future
climate. The match between what the computer models have
predicted and what is actually happening to the climate has
become ``much, much sharper,'' he said.
This has allowed his panel to narrow its range of
scenarios for 21st-century climate.
In the 2001 assessment, the U.N. network projected
temperatures in this century would rise between 1.4 and 5.8
degrees celsius, depending on many factors, including whether
governments move quickly to rein in emissions. In the upcoming
report, that range is expected to be narrowed to 2 to 4.5
degrees celsius.
Further warmth of even 1 or 2 degrees would tend to
shift climate zones, disrupting agriculture and ecosystems,
and producing more extreme weather events, scientists say.
Pachauri credited the ever-deeper ice-core samples
taken in Antarctica and Greenland for allowing scientist to
look farther back at ancient atmospheres. This``gives you a
solid perspective on what human beings have done to Earth's
climate,'' he said.
Citing growing public acceptance of the science of
climate change, Pachauri indicated he believed the United
States would eventually accept emissions caps. ``Democratic
governments will have to take into account the views of the
public,'' he said.
Bureau Report
