HR: 13:40h
AN: ED33C-01    [Abstracts]
TI: Global Warming: Settled Science? Unsettled Media Debate??
AU: * Schneider, S H
EM: SHS@stanford.edu
AB: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently assessed the approximate 0.75°C warming since 1850 as an "unequivocal" trend. This is very rare and strong language for scientists who often lead with their caveats, not with their concerns. Later, the same report says it is "very likely" (i.e.- greater that 90% chance) that most of the warming of the past several decades can be attributed to human activities, primarily greenhouse gas emissions. So far, the science sounds "settled". Furthermore, the IPCC, as well as many other national assessments, assigns very high confidence to projections of further warming, intensified tropical cyclones, more extremes of drought and flood, and melting mountain glaciers and arctic sea ice in the twenty-first century. Still sounds settled. However, the likely range of warming projected by IPCC to 2100 varies by a whopping factor of 6: 1.1-6.4°C above 1990 levels-- hardly "settled science". Projections of precipitation are equivocal even as to the direction of change. Therefore, IPCC Working Group 2 recommends a "risk management" approach to dealing with the combination of well establish and remaining speculative components of global warming that nonetheless pose potentially serious risks to human and natural systems.
DE: 0429 Climate dynamics (1620)
DE: 0850 Geoscience education research
DE: 1626 Global climate models (3337, 4928)
DE: 6309 Decision making under uncertainty
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting