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Global Climate Change
The (IPCC) was set up in 1988 to asses information on
climate change and its impact. It's Fourth Assessment Report predicts that global temperatures could rise from anything between 1.1C to 6.4C by the end of the century.
Although the issue of the changing climate is very complex and some changes
are uncertain, temperature rises are expected to affect countries throughout
the globe and have a knock on effect with precipitation and sea level
rises.
The Fourth Assessment Report concluded that we can say with high confidence (>90% probability) that the effect of human activities since 1750 has been to warm the planet. It is also says that it is very likely (>90% probability) that observed temperature increases since the middle of the twentieth century have been caused by the increase in manmade greenhouse gas concentrations.
The report believes that it is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves, and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent. By the second half of the 21st century, wintertime precipitation in the northern mid to high latitudes and Antarctica will rise. At the same time, Australasia, Central America and Southern Africa are likely to see decreases in winter precipitation.
New data presented by scientists at an international meeting in Copenhagen (March 2009) indicated that the best estimates of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made only two years earlier, in relation to the rise in water levels was woefully out of date and seen as far too conservative.
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