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Global Warming
On Feb. 2, 2007, the United Nations scientific panel studying climate change declared that the evidence of a warming trend is "unequivocal," and that human activity has "very likely" been the driving force in that change over the last 50 years. The last report by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in 2001, had found that humanity had "likely" played a role.
The addition of that single word "very" did more than reflect mounting scientific evidence that the release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from smokestacks, tailpipes and burning forests has played a central role in raising the average surface temperature of the earth by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1900. It also added new momentum to a debate that now seems centered less over whether humans are warming the planet, but instead over what to do about it. In recent months, business groups have banded together to make unprecedented calls for federal regulation of greenhouse gases. The subject had a red-carpet moment when former Vice President Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," was awarded an Oscar; and the Supreme Court made its first global warming-related decision, ruling 5 to 4 that the Environmental Protection Agency had not justified its position that it was not authorized to regulate carbon dioxide.
The greenhouse effect has been part of the earth's workings since its earliest days. Gases like carbon dioxide and methane allow sunlight to reach the earth, but prevent some of the resulting heat from radiating back out into space. Without the greenhouse effect, the planet would never have warmed enough to allow life to form. But as ever larger amounts of carbon dioxide have been released along with the development of industrial economies, the atmosphere has grown warmer at an accelerating rate: Since 1970, temperatures have gone up at nearly three times the average for the 20th century.
The latest report from the climate panel predicted that the global climate is likely to rise between 3.5 and 8 degrees Fahrenheit if the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere reaches twice the level of 1750. By 2100, sea levels are likely to rise between 7 to 23 inches, it said, and the changes now underway will continue for centuries to come.
Articles and multimedia about global warming published in The New York Times appear below, along with a Navigator with links to Web sites with more information.
Since 2002 this website has born witness to ongoing changes on Planet Earth caused by global warming. The photo essays and reports shown above and within, have just been given background in comprehensive and authoritative detail by the world's climate scientists.
A huge change is underway across the globe and in its atmosphere, they report, that is affecting not only nature, but the lives and homes of millions of people. Changes can be measured from the highest mountains to deep in the oceans and are leading to extinction for parts of earth's rich biodiversity. For humans, the changes in climate are particularly dangerous to people who live near the ocean shore and who already suffer from drought, flooding and poverty. Many of these effects have been known previously, and I have traveled to 22 nations to report on some of them. But this comprehensive new report carries the imprimatur of the United Nations and gathers together and analyzes hundreds of published research papers.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released this latest report: "Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability," in Brussels, 6 April 2007. Their summary document shows an increasing impact to natural systems and living things as earth's temperature rises degree by degree. The vulnerabilities reported are stark and focus on people already at risk in the world's poorer nations -- people who have had little to do with the increase of the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere. The scientists indicate that in a few areas, agriculture may improve in the early part of the warming expected this century. But they make clear that unpleasant circumstances are the major effect and that more are in store unless we control our use of fossil fuel and other sources of heat-trapping gases.
The summary report is a consensus document and is subject to last minute changes suggested by world governments and negotiated with the scientific authors. As bad as the report seemed, many news reports emerging from Brussels indicated some scientists said the consensus process left out some serious effects and watered down the language of the summary. It is expected that many more details and straight information from research will be available in the 1500 page full report. More info on this part of the IPCC 2007 study will be posted here later. My article on the first section in February is here.