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Climate Change… The Facts
Organisation : Cambridge University Press
Further proof of the reality of climate change was made available to the planet
today with the publication of Climate Change 2001. The three volumes, running to
some 2,600 pages, are published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Together they form the most
comprehensive picture of the state of the climate and the global environment yet
published.
Climate Change 2001 is the IPCC’s Third Assessment, and updates the second
(1996) report with further research confirming that earlier judgements and
projections of global mean temperature increases were vastly underestimated. The
most up-to-date research and forecasts contained within this report predict that
global mean temperatures could increase by as much as 5.8°C by the year 2100.
The IPCC also concludes that human activity is having a discernible effect on
the environment, and that global temperatures are increasing at a rate
unprecedented in the last thousand years.
As well as detailing the hard scientific evidence which points to man-made
changes to the Earth’s climate, Climate Change 2001 considers the ways in which
this climate change will affect human and natural ecosystems, and what we can do
to try and avert the probable consequences. Each volume contains a summary for
policymakers, condensing the key findings of the research into one chapter.
Many hundreds of scientists from all over the world participated in the
preparation and review of the final reports. The following pages highlight the
most significant messages from each of the three volumes: I - The Scientific
Basis; II - Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability; and III - Mitigation.
About the IPCC
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was set up jointly by the United
Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organisation in 1988
to provide an authoritative, international consensus of scientific opinion on
climate change. The IPCC’s comprehensive Assessment Reports and the more focused
Special Reports are the most up-to-date analyses of all aspects of the climate
change issue. Containing contributions from several hundred international
experts, they form the standard scientific reference for all concerned with
climate change and its consequences, in academe, government and industry
world-wide.
Climate Change 2001 is the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report and is published in
three volumes by Cambridge University Press on 12th July 2001. |
