Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Its conclusion was that doubling atmospheric CO
would
increase the average global surface temperature by
F
.
C), and that the increase at the poles would be much
more than the average. The JASON climate model
included a more sophisticated treatment of the ocean
(
.
-
atmosphere interaction than had been used before. The
model was a simpli
ed one that could be solved without
big computers, and the answer was in fairly good agree-
ment with what we get now for the average temperature
increase, but overstated the polar increase. The report
was in
uential in increasing government funding for cli-
mate change research.
The IPCC, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize in
as an organization
sponsored by the United Nations Environmental Pro-
gram.
With the signing of the UN Framework Conven-
tion on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in
for its work, was created in
, the IPCC
became the technical arm of this
-nation organization.
The IPCC does not sponsor climate research itself but
coordinates and synthesizes the work done by many
groups around the world. Its major products are its peri-
odic Assessment Reports, which make the best scienti
c
predictions of the effects of increasing greenhouse gas
concentration to the year
based on the state of
knowledge at the time the report is produced. The
rst
Assessment Report appeared in
, the second in
,
the third in
, the fourth in
, and the
fifth is
appearing in
-
.
All the IPCC reports are available online (
www.ipcc.ch
)
and the reports
called
“
Summary for Policymakers
”
are written with clarity for people
without a technical background.
