According to the report, existing evidence shows that climate change has led to changes in climate extremes such as heat waves, record high temperatures and, in many regions, heavy precipitation in the past half century. See the full report at the IPCC website.
The IPCC report also forecasts increases in the average maximum wind speed of tropical cyclones (also known as typhoons or hurricanes) during the coming century, although possibly not in every ocean basin. However it is also likely that overall there will be either a decrease or essentially no change in the number of tropical cyclones.
Droughts could intensify in southern Europe and the Mediterranean region, central Europe, central North America, Central America and Mexico, northeast Brazil, and southern Africa, but the experts say they only have “medium" confidence in that outlook, based on definitional issues regarding how to classify and measure a drought, a lack of observational data, and the inability of models to include all the factors that influence droughts.
“The main message from the report is that we know enough to make good decisions about managing the risks of climate-related disasters. Sometimes we take advantage of this knowledge, but many times we do not," said Chris Field, Co-Chair of IPCC's Working Group II, which together with Working Group I produced the report. “The challenge for the future has one dimension focused on improving the knowledge base and one on empowering good decisions, even for those situations where there is lots of uncertainty," he said.
A summary version of the report was released for policymakers in November 2011. The full report released this provides the basis for the key conclusions first presented in the SPM. It offers a greater understanding of the human and economic costs of disasters and the physical and social patterns that cause them. It enables policy-makers to delve into the detailed information behind the findings to examine the material on which the IPCC based its assessments. Read the full report here.
Source: by Bob Berwyn, Summit County Citizens Voice.
