UN Panel: Human Influence “Extremely Likely” Cause of Climate Change
Published at
iStock/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N. panel created to give governments reliable information on climate change, has turned in a report stating that it is “extremely likely” that human influence has been the dominant cause of the warming observed over the last 100 years.
The report found that each of the last three decades have been increasingly warmer. “Observations of changes in the climate system are based on multiple lines of independent evidence,” said Qin Dahe, Co-Chair of the IPCC Working Group 1. “Our assessment of the science finds that the atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amount of snow and ice has diminished, the global mean sea level has risen and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased.”
The changes in the world climate are significant, the report says, calling it “very likely” that we will see more frequent and longer heat waves, more rainfall in wet regions and less in dry regions, with few exceptions.
Additionally concerning, Dahe added that “as the ocean warms, and glaciers and ice sheets reduce, global mean sea level will continue to rise, but at a faster rate than we have experienced over the last 40 years.”
The report concluded that even if emissions of carbon dioxide were to stop, the effects will continue to persist for hundreds of years and that the cause of the climate change is human influence — with 95 to 100 percent certainty.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio