GENEVA, Feb. 19, 2001
Reports: Dire Climate Changes Ahead
More Freak Weather Expected, Loss Of Human Life, Species
-
The reports say changes are most extreme in the polar regions, the harbingers of global climate. (AP)
And scientists say the severe climate change is punishment for sins of the past, reports CBS News Correspondent Byron Pitts. It's all the result of years of pollution: the world is now dependent on fossil fuels that produce carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases that stay in the atmosphere a hundred years after they're released.
Research presented Sunday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in San Francisco shows that the white ice atop Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro and mountain glaciers in Tibet and Peru may be disappearing, the victim of a process shrinking mountain glaciers everywhere.
Measurements taken in the Andes mountains of Peru show that a glacier was melting back at about 12 feet a year in 1978. New measurements taken last year show that the retreat has accelerated to more than 500 feet a year. And a survey completed last year found more than 80 percent of the ice field that existed on Kilimanjaro in 1912 has melted, said Lonnie G. Thompson, an Ohio State University researcher.
"The ice will be gone by 2015 or so," predicted Thompson, who has studied the worldwide decline of mountain glaciers.
The second report, presented in Geneva by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said poor countries would bear the brunt of devastating changes as a result of global warming. But it warned that the rich wouldn't be immune, with Florida and parts of the American Atlantic coast likely to be lashed by storms and rising sea levels.
"Most of the earth's people will be on the losing side," said Harvard University environmental scientist James J. McCarthy, who co-chaired the panel.
Monday's report was a summary of 1,000 pages of research into Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, conducted by some 700 scientists. Given the political sensitivities of the climate debate, the 19-page summary was subject to line-by-line scrutiny by government representatives during weeklong discussions prior to release.
"Projected climate changes during the 21st century have the potential to lead to future large-scale and possible irreversible changes in Earth systems," with "continental and global consequences," said the report, adding that climate change will lead to:
The report said global economic losses from so-called natural catastrophes increased from about $4 billion per year in the 1950s to $40 billion in 1999. Total costs were in reality twice as high, it said.
The IPCC report followed one released last month in Shanghai, China, by the international climate change panel. That predicted that global temperatures could rise by as much as 10.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century. It said the increase was much higher than expected, with clear evidence that industrial and auto pollution were to blame.
The third volume, on solutions, will be released in March. But effective international action remains elusive, in part because of U.S. reluctance to commit to firm targets to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, which trap heat in the atmosphere, and the push in developing countries like China toward economic progress.
Scientists have for years warned about the impact of global warming. What is significant about the new reports, however, is the degree of precision about the extent and impact of climate change.
"The effects of climate change are expected to be greatest in developing countries in terms of loss of life and relative effects on investment and the economy," said the report.
Changing rainfall patterns coupled with population growth would lead to huge pressure on water supplies, it predicted. It said that 1.7 billion people live in areas where water resources are tight. This likely will increase to about 5.4 billion in the next 25 years.
"Projected climate change will be accompanied by an increase in heat waves, often exacerbated by increased humidity and urban air pollution, which would cause an increase in heat-related deaths and illness," it said.
Basic human needs like food and clean water are at risk, said panel chairman Robert Watson, chief scientist of the World Bank. "Those with the least resources have the least capacity to adapt."
The report said a reduction in crop yields would lead to an increase in malnutrition in vulnerable areas — especially in drought-prone parts of Africa.
Even more serious was the risk from rising sea levels — such as landslides — in densely populated coastal areas ranging from Egypt to Poland to Vietnam.
The report said that the change in temperature was most extreme in the polar regions.
"Climate change in polar regions is expected to be among the largest and most rapid of any region of Earth," it said. "Polar regions contain important drivers of change. Once triggered, they may continue for centuries, long after greenhouse gas concentrations are stabilized, and cause irreversible impacts on ice sheets, global ocean circulation and sea-rise."
The report predicted that half of Alpine glaciers could disappear in the next 100 years, and said less reliable snow conditions would have an adverse impact on winter tourism in Europe.
In th United States, sea-level rise would result in increased coastal erosion, flooding and risk of storm surges, particularly in Florida and much of the Atlantic coast.
Small island nations would be "among the countries most seriously impacted by climate change," it warned. Tourism — not to mention life in general — would be severely disrupted.
©MMI Viacom Internet Services Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ex-NBA ref Tim Donaghy 
