Draft IPCC report

A draft International Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) report, presented to national governments in April 2006 and formally released next year, confirms that climate scientists no longer are able to predict how bad global warming is going to get.

The United Nations climate scientists will warn governments that the threat of global warming has increased significantly due to recent high profile studies, which appears to confirm that the impact of global warming is likely to be much higher than anticipated just 12 months ago.

Another worrying development is that the scientists no longer are able to confirm what the true impact is likely to be. The last IPCC report predicted that world temperatures would be between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees higher in 2100. This range is no longer seen as being adequate. Computer models have predicted temperature increases above 10 degrees by 2100, while others suggests possible increases between 2 - 4.5 degrees before the turn of the century.

The last IPCC report, released in 2001 also touched on Antarctica, which was described as a 'lumbering giant in terms of climate change'. The draft report confirms that this is no longer the case and that the worlds largest fresh water deposit is now and 'awakened giant'.

The report also echoes a UK report released last month, which confirmed that sea level rises within the next 100 years are expected to reach 0.9 meters.