A draft of the next IPCC report
has recently been leaked by an American blogger, Alec Rawls! It has however led to much debate and argument by climate skeptics about what to actually believe...
An article from New Scientist tells us more about some of the key details of this report.
I’m sure many including myself
would agree with Rawls highlighting that humans will be the main driver of
climate change. He then goes on to state that changing feedbacks within the climate system
affect the impact of solar power on the climate, and that therefore this is essentially one of the key drivers of climate change. This has been questioned by
other scientists however, saying that the sun doesn’t have much immediate effect
over human timescales generally.
So what does the report have to say
about sea level in particular? The IPCC believe that the Arctic may actually
experience ice-free summers by the end of the century. This claim has of course
been challenged by other scientists who claim this will happen even earlier
(perhaps by 2050). The possibility is prevalent, however it looks like only
time will tell. Ice sheet movement has also apparently been included in the
models of sea level change.
I guess the question of the
moment amongst climate scientists following this leak is the extent of solar
effects on our climate vs fossil fuels? And that humans really are the main
forcing factor of climate change now. For instance, this blog ridicules the IPCC by saying that their report doesn’t even make logical sense.
Uh oh! Who are we to believe
now? The climate world is full of such contradictions, it’s hard to predict
what the actual truth is. This was however just a draft report, that has seemed to have caused a stir in the climate world. Over the next few months we will have to wait and see what is actually to come...
A few sites to check:
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