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Title: Key study of global warming prepared
Source:
San Diego Union Tribune
URL Source: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/ ... /20070128-9999-1m28report.html
Published: Jan 28, 2007
Author: Bruce Lieberman, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRI
Post Date: 2007-01-28 15:34:28 by robin
Keywords: None
Views: 50
Comments: 4
By Bruce Lieberman January 28, 2007 Veerabhadran Ramanathan doubted for years that greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels were warming the planet. No longer. “The (scientific) community has come around, not because of anything intangible. It's just that the data is so overpowering,” said Ramanathan, a climate scientist at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla. Researchers are more confident than ever about the causes of global warming, how they're changing Earth and what might be in store as the heat-up continues. Their confidence is reflected in a landmark document to be announced Friday in Paris. The “Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007,” is expected to shape discussions of global warming for years to come – from national capitals, statehouses and city councils to university lecture halls, corporate board rooms and media outlets everywhere. The report originates from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC. Ramanathan and three of his colleagues, Richard Somerville and Lynne Talley at the Scripps Institution and Mario Molina at the University of California San Diego, contributed to “Fourth Assessment.” “I am hoping it will have a huge impact on nations, including ours,” Ramanathan said. “It's the platinum standard of scientific opinion on what's happening to the Earth's climate,” said Talley, an expert on ocean circulation. Since the IPCC was formed in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme, it has issued checkups on the planet every six years. Over the past century, the globe has warmed about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit. In 2001, the IPCC estimated that average temperatures worldwide could increase an additional 2.5 to 10.4 degrees by 2100, depending on the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Meanwhile, sea levels could rise between 4 and 35 inches by 2100. Both projections are expected to be refined in the new report. Several scientists associated with the document said they couldn't discuss the latest estimates until Friday. But some media reports have quoted early drafts of the report as indicating a rise in global temperatures of 3.6 to 8.1 degrees this century, with an increase of about 5.4 degrees most likely. “There's always uncertainties (and) there's always more to be learned, but the big picture is more and more solid,” said Somerville, who is in Paris this week with Molina for the announcement. Warming is expected to get more severe, Somerville said, unless “the world makes a serious effort to drastically reduce the emissions of these gases and stabilize the concentrations of them in the atmosphere.” As heat records break, more Arctic ice melts during the summer, and sea levels rise, scientists say a handful of milestones in recent years have silenced many skeptics of climate change. One was a federal government report that reanalyzed satellite data and found that the atmosphere up to 32,000 feet is, in fact, warming. The finding settled a 15-year debate over what the data indicated, and validated computer models that scientists use to forecast continued warming. Another development was the completion of a major study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and the Scripps Institution. The report concluded that the oceans are getting warmer as far down as 3,280 feet below the surface. “Now we know that the atmospheric blanket, the oceans, everything is warming,” Ramanathan said. The four San Diego scientists are among 3,750 researchers who reviewed or helped write “Fourth Assessment,” which is made up of four volumes. The colossal effort drew on climate-change experts from more than 130 countries and took six years to complete. The first volume, a 12-page summary of the latest science on global warming, is scheduled for publication Friday. Later this year, the IPCC will release the full science volume, a third volume that discusses how people can adapt to warming and a fourth on ways to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. San Diego's four scientists contributed to the volume on climate science. The new IPCC report is coming at a time in the United States when there's unprecedented awareness of global warming and its connection to the burning of fossil fuels. Films, movies, documentaries, books, news articles and TV shows all have tackled the issue. The Supreme Court is deciding whether the federal government should regulate carbon dioxide as an air pollutant under the Clean Air Act. Congress and President Bush are talking about the need to cut greenhouse gases. A year and a half ago, the ferocity of Hurricane Katrina prompted many people to suspect that warmer temperatures might be causing more extreme weather. Last year was the warmest in the contiguous United States in more than a century. The past nine years have been among the 25 warmest years on record. “I think all these things have probably prepared the public and made people more receptive and more interested in this report,” Somerville said. “Fourth Assessment” is actually a synthesis of what scientists know about the climate. Researchers hope its comprehensiveness will provide a fuller picture of global warming. “The bottom line is that the evidence is getting stronger with time, and this report will document that,” Molina said. The science volume includes two new chapters, one that addresses the effects of warming and increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the world's oceans, and one that looks at the effects of global warming in specific regions, Talley said. It has been exceedingly difficult for scientists to give reliable estimates of how global warming might change the climate on regional scales – in Southern California, for example. The report is expected to discuss the challenges of drawing connections between global climate shifts and regional ones. “Fourth Assessment” also will address the interplay between warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions and cooling by tiny pollutants called aerosols. In southeast Asia and other parts of the world, aerosol air pollution is so severe that it has dimmed sunlight and masked the effects of global warming. Among the aerosols that cause cooling are sulfates, produced by coal combustion; nitrates, which come from cars; and volatile organic carbons, which come from car emissions as well as barbecues. In 2001, Ramanathan published a report estimating that aerosol pollution in the global atmosphere is preventing Earth from warming up an additional 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit. As aerosol pollution is cleared from the air, “we would get to see what the real nature of this greenhouse (gas) beast is,” Ramanathan said. Few things manage to surprise Ramanathan, he said, “but the rate at how the planet is changing is just incredible. . . . I think this IPCC (report) – you can't find a better summary or a better synthesis of information about the planet.” Poster Comment:Scripps, UCSD scholars contribute to document
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER 
Bruce Lieberman: (619) 293-2836; bruce.lieberman@uniontrib.com
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