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| Cover of the last IPCC report 'Climate Change 2013: The Physical basis'. Source: IPCC |
On Friday, the IPCC published its last
report. Probably, you have listened or read something about it during these
days. What is the IPCC? and (2) What is this report about?
The IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC). It was established in 1988 by the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization
(WMO) to provide
the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of knowledge in
climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic impacts. How?
The IPCC reviews and assesses the most recent scientific, technical and
socio-economic information produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of
climate change. Thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute
to the work of the IPCC, bringing their expertise in the many different disciplines necessary to
produce a comprehensive assessment of climate change on a voluntary basis. For the preparation of the
last report on ‘Climate Change. The Physical Science Basis’, a total of 259
Lead Authors and 50 Review Editors from 39 countries and more than 600
Contributing Authors from 32 countries contributed. You can download the report here.
According to the information published on
this last report, I want to resume some of things that we 'certainly know' about climate change based on what the last decades
of observations tell us. Why do I remark the fact that ‘we certainly
know’? Because the report is cautiously written. It means that consensus is
necessary among the scientists that contribute to the report when the degree of certainty in key findings is expressed from very low to very high and from exceptionally unlikely to virtually certain. Thus, findings considered virtually certain
are supported by data, theory, models, etc. and the scientific consensus.
Those are some of these findings.