Report: Climate Change Coming Sooner, Stronger Than Thought

A report released on September 22 by the United Nations points to some disturbing findings about how much quicker global warming is coming on:

Roseanne Skirble of Voice of America reports:

“The UNEP report presents scientific evidence that has emerged since the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its last report in 2007. The “Climate Change Science Compendium” affirms that climate change is accelerating faster than previous estimates.  UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner says evidence of human-generated warming is “unequivocal” and “just in time for us to appreciate how the magnitude of change, the scale of change and the pace of change are in fact occurring.”

Findings from some 400 peer-reviewed studies from scientific journals and research institutes are woven into the report’s chapters on earth systems, ecosystems, ice, oceans and climate management. The data show that global carbon emissions – which rose 1.1 percent from 1990 to 1999 – climbed 3.5 percent from 2000-2007.

Rapid glacier-melt, sea-level rise and ocean acidification will become complex problems, Steiner says, in a world whose population is expected to grow to nine billion people by 2050. “And herein lies another vital message in the report,” he says. “When we talk about management, essentially we need to take the science that we now have at our disposal and think about how we are going to manage in response to these developments.”  

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