Climate change: the IPCC scientific assessment

Abstract

This is a Report of Working Group 1 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was set up jointly by the World Meteorological Organization and United Nations Environment Programme in 1988. It is an assessment of how human activities may be changing the Earth's climate through the Greenhouse Effect - potentially the greatest global environmental challenge facing mankind. The topics covered by this assessment include: Changes in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere; The global climate system and how it is modelled; Computer predictions of climate change; Observed climate change over the last century; Detection of climate change due to human activities; Changes in sea level due to global warming; The response of ecosystems to climate change; Research required to narrow uncertainties. Several hundred international scientists participated in the preparation and review of this assessment, making it the most authoritative and strongly supported statement on climate change that has been made by the scientific community so far. The information presented here is of the highest quality. It has been designed to provide a common guide to policymakers worldwide, and will now form a solid scientific foundation upon which forthcoming negotiations on the response to climate change will be based. This assessment is, therefore, an essential reference for all who are concerned with climate change and its consequences. The 12 main sections have all been abstracted separately. -from Publisher