Global warming pause 'central' to IPCC climate report

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is meeting in Sweden to thresh out a critical report on global warming.
Scientists will underline, with greater certainty than ever, the role of human activities in rising temperatures.
But many governments are demanding a clearer explanation of the slowdown in temperature increases since 1998.
One participant told BBC News that this pause will be a "central piece" of the summary.
Researchers from all over the world work with the IPCC to pore over thousands of peer-reviewed studies and produce a summary representing the current state of climate science.


Its previous report in 2007 was instrumental in helping the panel share the Nobel Peace Prize that year.
A new Summary for Policymakers on the physical sciences, the first of three parts that make up a report to be released over the next 12 months, will be published in Stockholm on Friday.
It will focus on the science underlying changes in temperature in the atmosphere, the oceans and at the poles.
New estimates will be given for the scale of global warming and its impact on sea levels, glaciers and ice sheets.
Levels of certainty
In its last report in 2007, the IPCC stated that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal" and that "most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th Century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations" - in other words, humans burning fossil fuels.
the latest draft summary, seen by the BBC, the level of scientific certainty has increased.
The panel states that it is 95% certain that the "human influence on climate caused more than half the observed increase in global average surface temperatures from 1951-2010."
But since 2007, there has been a growing focus on the fact that global average temperatures haven't gone above the level recorded in 1998.
This slowdown, or hiatus as the IPCC refers to it, has been leapt upon by climate sceptics to argue that the scientific belief that emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere increases the temperature of the planet, is wrong.
Scientists have attempted to explain the pause in a number of ways, with many arguing that the Earth has continued to warm but that the heat has gone into oceans.
The most recent report suggested that a periodic cooling of the Pacific ocean was counteracting the impact of the extra carbon in the atmosphere.
But there is no certainty and little agreement among scientists on the mechanisms involved.
And this week, when the scientists will go through their summary line by line with officials from 195 governments, the pause is likely to be the focus of heated debate.
Prof Arthur Petersen is the chief scientist at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and part of the Dutch delegation that will review the IPCC report.
"Governments are demanding a clear explanation of what are the possible causes of this factor," he told BBC News.
"I expect that this will be a central piece of the summary."
There are likely to be tough negotiations between the parties throughout the week, with governments having already submitted around 1,800 comments on the draft.
Any changes to the text will need to be approved by the scientists, who will want to make sure that they are consistent with the underlying reports. This could lead to some tense moments.
"I wouldn't say there is a reluctance of the authors to take up such an issue as the pause, but they want to do it in a proper way," said Prof Petersen.
"There will remain a tension between how much you can deliver based on the peer-reviewed science and what the governments would like to have."
Too sensitive
In the draft report, the panel agrees that "the rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998-2012) is smaller than the trend since 1951".
The effect of this slowdown means that the future temperature range predicted by the IPCC will be wider than in 2007, and with a lower starting point.
Many sceptical voices believe this is a recognition that the IPCC modelling process has been too sensitive to carbon dioxide, a claim given some credence by the text of the draft which states that some models have "too strong a response to increasing greenhouse gas forcing".
But Prof Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, who is a vice-chair of the IPCC, rejects this idea.
"To take that out of context, if that change is confirmed this week, and to present it as a big change in the opinion the IPCC has on climate sensitivity, is ridiculous," he said.
"Most climate scientists wouldn't say that the 15-year period is a good reason to question the overall quality of models."
There is a feeling among many scientists involved with the process that this report will be more complicated and cautious than in 2007.
In the wake of that year's report, a small number of embarrassing errors were detected in the underlying material. The organisation's reputation was also questioned in the Climategate rumpus.
"Overall, the message is, in that sense more conservative I expect, for this IPCC report compared to previous ones," said Prof Petersen.
"The language has become more complicated to understand, but it is more precise.
"It is a major feat that we have been able to produce such a document which is such an adequate assessment of the science. That being said, it is virtually unreadable

Human role in warming

Human role in warming 'more certain' - UN climate chief

By Roger Harrabin Environment analyst
Scientists are more certain than ever that greenhouse gases from human activities are heating the planet, the head of the UN's climate panel says.
Rajendra Pachauri made the comments in an interview with BBC News.
The panel is due to deliver its latest report on the state of the climate later this week in Stockholm, Sweden.

World Rhino Day 2013

World Rhino Day 2013 - Rhino's need help more than ever

Governments meeting in New York next week for the Opening of the United Nations General Assembly should seize the opportunity to accelerate efforts to combat illicit wildlife trafficking, WWF says.

Salvaging Lake Chad

Predictions by experts that Africa is the continent that is most vulnerable to changes in the global weather patterns occasioned by the climate change, which will affect water resources because of low adaptive capacity, is already manifesting in the shrinking of Lake Chad. This has resulted in loss of vegetation and water, the mainstay for the local economies of the Lake Chad’s community dwellers.
Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Cameroon and Libya are STATE PARTIES of the Lake Chad Basin, which is the lifewire of Lake Chad community dwellers of about 35 million people. Sadly, this great resource once reputed as Africa’s largest water reservoir in the Sahel region, covering an area of nearly 26,000 square kilometres has been receding at an alarming pace.

plant regeneration

According to an article from Science World Report, new research shows that some trees in tropical forests heighten their ability to capture nitrogen from the air and release it into the soil after being logged or cleared. Essentially, this can lead to the forest making a “comeback.”Researchers studied an area of the Panama Canal watershed to reach these findings. Through looking at and measuring carbon storage, runoff and biodiversity in different types of trees in different areas (such as forest restoration plots and abandoned pastureland) they found several interesting things.

The most interesting finding was that trees that fixed nitrogen from the atmosphere put on carbon weight faster than non-fixing trees—nine times faster, to be exact. Essentially, trees can turn nitrogen fixation on (or off) depending on the level of need in the environment.


This finding is critical in the field of carbon storage in that it suggests that if trees can grow and store carbon, they could then turn into a carbon sink, possibly slowing down or halting climate change.

environmental pollution menace in Bayelsa, Nigeria

By SaharaReporters, New York
A breach in an underwater manifold in Agip’s Brass Swamp location, Bayelsa State, has been discharging crude oil into streams and adjourning creeks, SaharaReporters has learned.
“Crude oil is floating on the water, and the members of our communities are anxious,” said a community leader.
A correspondent of SaharaReporters visited the spill site and reported seeing heavy oil equipment deployed by Agip’s contracting firm, Deck Oil and Gas. A community source said the community suspected that the equipment might have caused the spill as two earth-moving machines were abandoned at the construction sites near the spill site.
“An Agip engineer told us that the oil leak may have emanated from an underwater valve at the company’s pipeline network,” a member of the community said.
In a brief chat with SaharaReporters, Collins Adikoko, the deputy paramount ruler of Ikeinghenbiri in Olodiama clan, stated that his community was distressed by the leak. He added that the oil had spread into the creeks and natural fish ponds where most members of the surrounding communities fished.
“We have consistently been neglected by Agip which pollutes our area without any form of compensation,” said Mr. Adikoko. “And if you go around our swamps and bush, you see oil everywhere,” he continued.
SaharaReporters learnt that officials of the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) and members of Ikeinghenbiri community in southern Ijaw local government in Bayelsa had scheduled a joint visit to one of the oil spill sites on Thursday.
A source disclosed that the oil leak was discovered on Monday by a woman who was returning from fishing. Mr Marshall Josiah, chairman of Community Development Committee in Ikeinghenbiri, said that the visit to the spill site was scheduled after a report was made to the oil firm.
“The spill was reported to Agip officials as soon as it was discovered on Monday and as we speak the spill is still going on,” he said. “We have been notified by the management of Agip that they will be convening a joint investigative visit to the spill site this Thursday, so we are expecting them so that we can take stock of the damage done to our environment.” He continued: “Our fishermen were compelled to suspend fishing because the whole creeks and swamp were contaminated and today we can only depend on imported frozen fish. It is a strange thing for us as a fishing community to be buying frozen fish when we are supposed to be selling fish to others.” He said the community needed relief and appealed to the government to look into their plight.

misappropriation of fund

THE RETURN OF A SERIAL LOOTER A leopard never changes its skin they say. Gist is agog that the erstwhile Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Dr. Ahmed Modibbo Mohammed is presently scheming to return to the ‘juicy’ position of Executive Secretary again in the same parastatal, an office he left nearly a year ago after serving a full tenure of five years. If you recall, on the 11th of May 2010, a US-based online media outfit, Sahara-reporters, gave details of the multi-billion-naira scam spearheaded by the erstwhile Executive Secretary The media establishment alleged that the then, UBEC boss and his then newly-wedded wife, Aishatu Dahiru Mohammed, operating as the leader of a syndicate, used phony companies “to skim off billions of naira earmarked for the running of Nigerian primary and junior secondary schools.” Going further, Saharareporters said that Apart from his criminal record as a serial looter, Modibbo also has a reputation of being a master schemer. Saharareporters gave details of how he wangled his way to become the UBEC boss despite his bad antecedent at his previous job as the boss the National Teachers’ Institute (NTI) and the fact that his point of entry into the commission fell short of the requisite requirements of a degree or certificate in education. The erstwhile UBEC boss is also alleged to be in the vanguard of staunch supporters of known enemies of the Goodluck Jonathan administration. It is believed that he is using part of the money he stole from the coffers of these parastatals to give financial support to the presidential ambition of some opposition parties’ flag-bearers. This is aside other reports alleging that a large chunk of the stolen billions from the UBEC coffers may have been diverted to the self-acclaimed Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram which has killed hundreds of thousands of Nigerians in cold blood. This is why it is so shocking that modibbo who some media outfits gave graphic details of how he spent millions of naira to support arch-enemies of President Goodluck Jonathan's) political ambition can be thinking of making a return to office under the same Jonathan. We are reliably informed that he had recruited the support of some of his ‘loyalists’ in high places of power who partook in the loot of his over N50 Billion during his 12 Years reign as head of two Education support Agencies, plundering the resources of these two outfits namely the National Teachers’ Institute (NTI) and the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), or how can one explain the underground moves some of his northern godfathers had been engaging in, purportedly appealing and lobbying the president on his behalf. How can one comprehend the gist that Dr. Modibbo is still interested in returning to the position after all the atrocities he had been accused of? Nigerians reading this piece, what do you think the return of this serial looter and immoral man to the agency portends for the future of the country’s education? What kind of legacy does the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration wants to leave for us in this very sensitive sector?