Sneak preview of big report: Change is 'already showing up'

The second report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts massive humanitarian crises.

By Brad Knickerbocker

from the March 15, 2007 edition

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Reports that the effects of global warming may be felt by the average person quicker and deeper than previously thought were reflected in a flurry of news coverage over the past week.

The Associated Press broke a big story last weekend, giving an advance look at the draft of an international scientific report due out next month. Among the findings, according to AP: "The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won't have enough water...."

"At the same time, tens of millions of others will be flooded out of their homes each year as the Earth reels from rising temperatures and sea levels...."

"Things are happening and happening faster than we expected," Patricia Romero Lankao of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., told the wire service.

Written and reviewed by more than 1,000 scientists from around the world, the document is the second in a series of four being issued this year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Its final form, as edited by government officials, could differ somewhat from the version leaked to AP.

Considered by some scientists to be the "emotional heart" of climate-change research, this report focuses on how global warming alters the planet and life. University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver told AP:

"The science is one thing. This is how it affects me, you, and the person next door."

Meanwhile, on Monday, scientists in Australia reported findings on rising sea levels that were too fresh for inclusion in the IPCC report. "Data from satellites is showing that sea-level rises and polar ice-melting might be worse than earlier thought," according to a Reuters report from a global oceans conference in Hobart, Australia.

"All indications are that it's going to get faster," said Eric Lindstrom, head of oceanography at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

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