BREAKING NEWS: CLIMATE CHANGE REPORT New York Times leaks draft of the U.S. Global Change Research Program's Climate Science Special Report (CSSR) The leak of the so-called
Fifth-Order Draft (5OD) of the Climate Science Special Report (CSSR) was "a final draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made
public (...). The report was completed this year and is part of the National Climate Assessment, which is congressionally mandated every four years" as the New
York Times (NYT) reports.
The full draft released is also directly available to download here Actually, the E.P.A (Environmental Protection Agency) was due to approve the report by August 18 but NYT reports scientists feared that the Trump administration could change or suppress the report. As the National Academy of Sciences had already signed off on the CSSR, it was up to the Trump administration to release it. The concerns relate also to the newly Trump-appointed administrator of the E.P.A. Scott Pruitt who publicly denounced mainstream science conclusion of man-made climate change: Findings of the CSSR The authors note that thousands of studies, conducted by tens of thousands of scientists, have documented climate changes on land and in the air. "Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases, are primarily responsible for recent observed climate change," they wrote (p. 39). Worldwide, the draft report finds it "extremely likely" (ibid) that more than half of the global mean temperature increase since 1951 can be linked to human influence. A small difference in global temperatures can make a big difference in the climate: The difference between a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and one of 2 degrees Celsius, for example, could mean longer heat waves, more intense rainstorms and the faster disintegration of coral reefs. The report concludes that even if humans immediately stopped emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the world would still feel at least an additional 0.30 degrees Celsius of warming over this century compared with today. The projected actual rise, scientists say, will be as much as 2 degrees Celsius. This is exactly the level of temperature rise allowed by the Paris Climate Accord from which the Trump administration withdrew calling it unfair to the U.S. economy. Please find the full article in the NYT by Lisa Friedman here. |  Image: © alphaspirit |
