Global Warming White Papers

Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis / Technical Summary

• Tags:
• global warming,
• agents,
• climate,
• forcing

Overview The third major assessment report of IPCC Working Group I builds upon... past assessments and incorporates the results of the past five years of climate research. This Summary aims to describe the major features of the understanding of the climate system and climate change at the outset of the 21st century. Specifically: What does the observational record show with regard to past climate changes, both globally and regionally and both on the average and in the extremes? How quantitative is the understanding of the agents that cause climate to change, including both those that are natural (e.g., solar variation) and human-related (e.g., greenhouse gases) phenomena? What is the current ability to simulate the responses of the climate system to these forcing agents? In particular, how well are key physical and biogeochemical processes described by the present global climate models? Based on today's observational data and today's climate predictive capabilities, what does the comparison show regarding a human influence on today's climate? Fruther, using current predictive tools, what could the possible climate future be? Namely, for a wide spectrum of projections for several climate-forcing agents, what does current understanding project for global temperatures, regional patterns of precipitation, sea levels, and changes in extremes? Finally, what are the most urgent research activities that need to be addressed to improve our understanding of the climate system and to reduce our uncertainty regarding future climate change?

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