Even though more than a month remains until an official release, Reuters is now reporting on a leaked draft of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report. The report, the first in six years by the international body, is considered the definitive scientific take on climate change (although it is sometimes faulted for being too conservative, and quickly becomes out of date).
Previous IPCC reports have made news for a variety of reasons. The 2001 report, for instance, declared it "likely" (e.g., a 66 percent probability; explanation here) that most of the observed warming that the planet has seen is caused by humans. The 2007 report upped that assessment to "very likely" (a 90 percent probability); and now, according to Reuters, scientists are giving us a 95 percent confidence in this central conclusion of modern climate research. That appears to be the chief headline that will be emerging from the IPCC this time around.Another bombshell reportedly contained in the draft: The IPCC will now label the phenomenon of sea level rise "unequivocal" and increase prior estimates of projected sea level during this century.
and the right wing is still howling at the moon throwing salt over their shoulder and slamming science and looking for a damn groundhog as a progressive trick to get us to regulate the shortcuts of big business and deny them their freedom to pollute and poison us for a few dollars more.
The new report, Reuters says, offers only "medium confidence" that scientists understand the reasons for this slowing. Causes cited include the possibility that the oceans are taking up more heat, that volcanic eruptions (which tend to produce cooling) may be providing a partial offset to temperature rise, contributing too cooling, or that the climate itself has a lower "sensitivity" to greenhouse gas emissions than previously proposed. (For an explanation of why skeptics' arguments about the global warming "slowdown" are misleading and should not offer any consolation, see this explainer from Skeptical Science.)
anything other than those things that would bring about regulated control and higher cost to the already mega million dollar companies.
which would you want ignoring it and rolling the dice, or laying up in the hospital dying from nothing?
