After five years of silence, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a summary today stating they are 95 percent sure global warming is caused by “human influence.”
The full report will be released on Monday, but they are today calling for international action to limit CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions. In their last report in 2007, the IPCC called global warming because of human activity “very likely,” but scientists are now more certain of that assessment. Although the report also states that global warming has slowed down over the past 15 years, the IPCC says long-term trends are more telling.
They predict that the earth’s temperature will get hotter, heat waves will increase and last longer and dry regions will get even less rain. The report also states that ocean temperatures will rise, and sea levels are projected to rise 10-32 inches.
However, critics of climate change say that climate change predictions are faulty and unreliable. They say that the lack of climate change these past 15 years could be show that global warming has slowed down or stopped altogether.
Does this report leave room for doubt about global warming? Are climate prediction models faulty? Will this report lead to an international climate deal?
Guest:
Coral Davenport, energy and environment correspondent for National Journal