Operational Diagnostics, Estimation of the Scale of Damage and Aftermath Reduction of the Stressful Natural Processes - New Ecoinformatics Tools in Environmental Science: Applications and Decision-making - page 789

the errors in the estimates of total GHGs 25 %, whereas the

levels of GHGs emissions reduction foreseen by the KP average about 5 %. An
average global situation is illustrated, for instance, by the fact that uncertainties of
the estimates of GHGs emissions due to the systems of energy production are
approximately equal to uncertainties of the estimates of CO 2 assimilationby the
biosphere and land.
In this situation, solution of the problem of the estimates uncertainties (

fl uxes gave

* ±

5 −

(first of

all, the matter concerns reliable information on carbon cycles) and veri cation are

particularly important. Solution of the veri cation problem requires a common

opinion of its mechanisms, which is also of great importance from the financial

point of view. Results of simulation modeling indicate, for instance, that if the
con dence level of GHGs emissions reduction by 5.2 % is raised from 50 to 95 %,

it will lead to an increase of expenditure on measures to reduce GHGs emissions by
factors of 3

4. The main conclusion is that science should serve as the compass for
recommendations on measures in the

−

field of ecological policy. In this respect, the
COP-6 failure can be a healing shock (Nilsson et al. 2002).
A serious uncertainty of the estimates of a potential anthropogenically induced
climate change and its determining factors has brought forth a heated discussion on
these problems both in scienti

c literature and in mass media. For instance, in the

“ ”

interview to a journalist from , Professor R. Lindzen from

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA (Lindzen et al. 2001; Lindzen and
Giannitsis 2003) said that his anxiety about speculative opinions of climate change
emerged in 1988 when J. Hansen (Director of Goddard Institute for Space Studies,
New York) announced in public that a global climate warming has resulted from an
increase of CO 2 concentration due to emissions to the atmosphere caused by fossil
fuel burning (Hansen and Sato 2001). This announcement has made R. Lindzen
explain that climate science is only at an initial stage of development and, in
particular, there is no consensus on the causes of climate change. In early 2001 he
reported at the meeting of the US Cabinet on the problem of climate change. The
fact that the global mean surface air temperature (SAT) increased by

Scienti c American

0.5 ° C

*

during 100 years, and the atmospheric CO 2 concentration increased by 30 %,

*

does not re ect a cause-and-effect feedback between CO 2 concentration increase

and temperature increase. Lindzen et al. (2001) believe that the most reliable
estimate of climatic sensitivity (SAT increase at a doubled CO 2 concentration) is
0.4

fl

C, and it means lack of a basis for anxiety about the catastrophic global climate
change in future.
According to IPCC mandate, the problem posed before IPCC is to prepare an
overview of

°

. Pielke
(2002) noted, however, that at least two climate-forming factors have turned out to
be either unreliably considered or left out of account at all:

“ any climate change with time, both natural and anthropogenic ”

(1) impact on global climate of anthropogenic changes of land surface

characteristics;
(2) biological impacts of the growing CO 2 concentration in the atmosphere (effect
of fertilization including) (Tianhong et al. 2003).