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The IPCC publish new assessment reports on climate change every 6 years. These are written by working groups (WG) of experts. WG1, comprising over 1000 scientists of many disciplines, studies the peer-reviewed documents published since the previous assessment (over 10,000 of them!) and make a consensual assessment of them, in conjunction with the previous report. This will be published shortly under the title Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. This a highly scientific report in the order of a thousand pages.
As this is incomprehensible to even climatological scientists in its totality, it will be published by chapter covering one discipline at a time.
The problem is that there is no way that politicians or their scientific advisers could make policy decisions from this. As a result, each WG publishes a very precise "Summary for Policymakers" and the Science Basis one (36 pages) has been published today and can be downloaded free at http://www.climatechange2013.org/
This summary of the full report would probably be unlikely to appeal to those without at least a reasonable knowledge of basic science, say O-level, preferably A-level in physics or equivalent. However, the language is very clear and precise, as are the figures.
If anyone would like to discuss the contents of this report, please do so here. Nevertheless, any abstract or categorical statements pro or con any aspect that is not in the context of the Summary would be better discussed elsewhere. To make sure it is in context, please read it first!
As this is incomprehensible to even climatological scientists in its totality, it will be published by chapter covering one discipline at a time.
The problem is that there is no way that politicians or their scientific advisers could make policy decisions from this. As a result, each WG publishes a very precise "Summary for Policymakers" and the Science Basis one (36 pages) has been published today and can be downloaded free at http://www.climatechange2013.org/
This summary of the full report would probably be unlikely to appeal to those without at least a reasonable knowledge of basic science, say O-level, preferably A-level in physics or equivalent. However, the language is very clear and precise, as are the figures.
If anyone would like to discuss the contents of this report, please do so here. Nevertheless, any abstract or categorical statements pro or con any aspect that is not in the context of the Summary would be better discussed elsewhere. To make sure it is in context, please read it first!
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