Letters to the Editor

• Hey Camille! What about the evidence? Why is it you don't care about evidence?

  [Read the article: Real inconvenient truths]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Check out the Wikipedia page on scientific consensus about global warming:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

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  Statements by organizations

  [edit] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

  Main article: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

  In February 2007, the IPCC released a summary of the forthcoming Fourth Assessment Report. According to this summary, the Fourth Assessment Report finds that human actions are "very likely" the cause of global warming, meaning a 90% or greater probability.[2]

  "The world's leading climate scientists said global warming has begun, is very likely caused by man, and will be unstoppable for centuries, ... . The phrase very likely translates to a more than 90 percent certainty that global warming is caused by man's burning of fossil fuels. That was the strongest conclusion to date, making it nearly impossible to say natural forces are to blame."[7]

  "The report said that an increase in hurricane and tropical cyclone strength since 1970 more likely than not can be attributed to man-made global warming. The scientists said global warming's connection varies with storms in different parts of the world, but that the storms that strike the Americas are global warming-influenced."[8]

  "On sea levels, the report projects rises of 7-23 inches by the end of the century. That could be augmented by an additional 4-8 inches if recent surprising polar ice sheet melt continues."[9]

  [edit] Joint science academies’ statement 2005

  In 2005 the national science academies of the G8 nations, plus Brazil, China and India, three of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the developing world, signed a statement on the global response to climate change. The statement stresses that the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action [10], and explicitly endorsed the IPCC consensus.

  [edit] Joint science academies’ statement 2001

  In 2001, following the publication of the IPCC Third Assessment Report, sixteen national science academies issued a joint statement explicitely acknowledging the IPCC position as representing the scientific conensus on climate change science. Among the signatories are the science academies of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Carribean, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.[11]

  [edit] U.S. National Research Council, 2001

  In 2001 the Committee on the Science of Climate Change of the National Research Council published Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions [12]. This report explicitly endorses the IPCC view of attribution of recent climate change as representing the view of the scientific community:

  The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability. Human-induced warming and associated sea level rises are expected to continue through the 21st century... The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue. [13]

  [edit] American Meteorological Society

  The American Meteorological Society (AMS) statement adopted by their council in 2003 said:

  There is now clear evidence that the mean annual temperature at the Earth's surface, averaged over the entire globe, has been increasing in the past 200 years. There is also clear evidence that the abundance of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased over the same period. In the past decade, significant progress has been made toward a better understanding of the climate system and toward improved projections of long-term climate change... Human activities have become a major source of environmental change. Of great urgency are the climate consequences of the increasing atmospheric abundance of greenhouse gases... Because greenhouse gases continue to increase, we are, in effect, conducting a global climate experiment, neither planned nor controlled, the results of which may present unprecedented challenges to our wisdom and foresight as well as have significant impacts on our natural and societal systems. [14]

  [edit] Federal Climate Change Science Program, 2006

  On May 2, 2006, the Federal Climate Change Science Program commissioned by the Bush administration in 2002 released the first of 21 assessments that concluded that there is clear evidence of human influences on the climate system (due to changes in greenhouse gases, aerosols, and stratospheric ozone) [15]. The study said that observed patterns of change over the past 50 years cannot be explained by natural processes alone, though it did not state what percentage of climate change might be anthropogenic in nature.

  Permalink Thursday, April 12, 2007 08:03 PM