WASHINGTON – Human-caused global warming is here – visible in the air, water and melting ice – and is destined to get much worse in the future, an authoritative global scientific report will warn next week.
“The smoking gun is definitely lying on the table as we speak,” said top U.S. climate scientist Jerry Mahlman, who reviewed the first segment of a four-part report. “The evidence … is compelling.”
The first phase of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is being released next week. This segment, written by more than 600 scientists and reviewed by another 600 experts, includes “a significantly expanded discussion of observation on the climate,” co-chair Susan Solomon a senior scientist for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said Monday.
That report will feature an “explosion of new data” on observations of current global warming, Solomon said.
Look for an “iconic statement” on how global warming is now occurring, said Kevin Trenberth, director of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
In a separate report, scientists warned that glaciers will all but disappear from the Alps by 2050.
In western Austria’s Alpine province of Tyrol, glaciers have been shrinking by about 3 percent a year, said Roland Psenner, of the University of Innsbruck’s Institute for Ecology. If they keep melting at that rate, most glaciers could vanish by 2037.
“The future looks rather liquid,” he said.
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