Why the UN’s coming fifth report on global warming is already making waves.

A leaked early version of a major forthcoming report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations-affiliated panel of scientists that is often cited as the world’s top authority on global warming, is grabbing headlines this week.

The New York Times reported on what it called the report’s “near certainty” that humans are responsible for the rising temperatures of recent decades and its warning that sea levels could rise by more than three feet by the end of the century.

The draft IPCC report also dismisses a recent slowdown in global warming, attributing it to short-term factors. (See “Rising Seas” in National Geographic magazine.)

The leaked document is only a draft, and still has to be approved by the several hundred scientist-members of the IPCC, who are scheduled to meet in Stockholm next month.

IPCC spokesperson Jonathan Lynn said in a statement Monday that it “is likely to change in response to comments from governments received in recent weeks and will also be considered by governments and scientists at a four-day approval session at the end of September. It is therefore premature and could be misleading to attempt to draw conclusions from it.”

But experts say the contents of the draft report are unlikely to change substantially, based on the IPCC’s past efforts. Whether it changes much or not, all this week’s attention on the leaked version speaks to the huge role the once-every-five-years-or-so report has come to play among scientists, the public, and governments around the world.

What Is the IPCC, Anyway?

The IPCC has met to produce a sweeping report on the state of global warming science every five or six years since the group was founded in 1988.

This latest iteration will be called the Fifth Assessment Report, or AR5. The IPCC does not conduct any original research, but instead works to review, analyze, and summarize existing climate science research from around the world.

Jim Kossin, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is one of many scientists helping to write the IPCC report on a voluntary basis.

“Each [IPCC] report is important in that it is updating all the recent research since the last one,” said Kossin.

Kossin added that other scientific groups release their own assessments on climate science, particularly at the national level, but that the IPCC reports tend to be the most important, globally speaking.

Many governments look to IPCC reports when charting policy relating to climate, from the local level all the way up to international bodies like the European Union. For example, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration has relied in part on IPCC reports in developing risk planning for the city and in promoting hybrid taxis, green roofs, and other sustainability measures.

The new report could impact laws and regulations on matters ranging from carbon taxes in Europe to funding for renewable energy in the United States to transportation planning in China.

A Nobel Prize

The IPCC came in for even more attention in 2007, when it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Al Gore. The Nobel Committee cited “their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”

But the award was loudly criticized by global warming skeptics.

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), a longtime global warming denier who has called man-made climate change “the greatest scientific scandal of our generation,” criticized the award and asked the Justice Department to investigate prominent IPCC scientists for possible academic misconduct (they were never charged).

David Henderson, a former chief economist of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), criticized the IPCC in the Wall Street Journal in October 2007. Henderson argued scientists invited to the IPCC are a self-selected group that includes only those who already accept human-caused climate change.

“The process is flawed, and this puts in doubt the accepted basis of official climate policies,” he wrote.

Skeptics Take Aim at IPCC

Criticism of the IPCC reached fever pitch after the group’s 2007 report, when it was revealed that a prediction about the melting of glaciers in the Himalaya was not derived from peer-reviewed science. That information was later removed.

The IPCC was also embroiled in criticism by climate skeptics in late 2009 after emails from scientists at East Anglia University were leaked to the press, in a very public flap that came to be known as “Climategate.” Bloggers thought they saw a “smoking gun” in an email referring to “hiding the decline”—which they speculated meant scientists had been covering up falling temperatures.

Actually, the scientist who sent the email explained that he had been referring to a specific problem with some recent tree-ring data. He said measured temperatures had continued to rise, showing 2009 to be one of the warmest years ever recorded.

Although some IPCC critics in the media had alleged that the leaked e-mails undermined mainstream climate science, the scientists successfully countered that their words had been read out of context, and that the conclusions of IPCC’s reports were unaffected.

An open letter from around that time to U.S. federal agencies by more than 250 scientists confirmed the community’s support for the IPCC’s report.

“None of the handful of mis-statements (out of hundreds and hundreds of unchallenged statements) remotely undermines the conclusion that ‘warming of the climate system is unequivocal,’” the letter read, “and that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely due to observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

Kossin said he and his fellow AR5 report authors are working very hard to be as thorough and objective as possible in their review of existing climate science, to reduce the possibility of mistakes and reduce chances for future criticisms.

Kossin voices a line similar to the one the scientists took in the open letter. “There’s always going to be skeptics in the world,” he said. “They tend to be a very small minority, but they are very vocal so they appear larger than they are.”

He added, “The vast majority of people who know about atmospheric science know the scientific evidence suggests that skeptics are wrong.”

Follow Brian Clark Howard on Twitter and Google+.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A state board decided Wednesday to ask lawmakers to rewrite a key portion of Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s mine safety bill, after concluding a mandated change in methane monitoring requirements was not feasible.

The state Board of Coal Mine Health and Safety instead proposed to adopt federal regulations on methane monitoring, but with a tougher standard than what is enforced by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Board members asked after repeated delays that left them about 10 months behind schedule to write a rule for tightening the state’s requirement for mining equipment to be automatically shut off when the explosive gas methane is detected underground.

“The board, after nearly a year of deliberations, could not come up with a way to implement the legislative mandate,” board administrator Joel Watts explained after the board’s decision at a meeting in Charleston.

The methane requirements are part of legislation supported by the governor, lawmakers, industry and labor. The legislation was billed as a response to the disaster at the former Massey Energy Upper Big Branch Mine. On April 5, 2010, a small methane ignition at Upper Big Branch grew into a huge coal-dust-fueled explosion. Twenty-nine miners died, making it the worst U.S. coal-mining disaster in nearly 40 years.

Generally, coal operators are required to monitor underground mines for methane, which can explode when it is present in an amount between 5 percent and 15 percent of the air.

Under federal rules, methane monitors are designed to automatically shut down underground mining equipment if the explosive gas is detected at concentrations of 2 percent or greater. The idea is that shutting down mining equipment removes a potential source of a spark that could ignite methane and cause a catastrophic explosion.

Initially, under legislation introduced last year by Democratic House of Delegates leaders, coal-cutting devices on mining equipment would be required to shut down automatically when methane concentrations reached 1.25 percent.

causes of global warming

First, let us clear that causes of global warming is the phenomenon of the increase in the temperature of the atmosphere and oceans in recent decades. Air pollutants accumulate in the atmosphere form a thicker layer at a time, trapping the sun’s heat and causing global warming. The main pollutants are carbon dioxide (produced by power plants based on coal) and carbon dioxide CO2 (emitted by cars).

Global warming will cause irreparable consequences:

– The melting of glaciers

– Droughts cause the most severe water shortages;

– Increased deforestation or throws deserts;

– Hurricanes, cyclones, global warming makes that more water evaporates from the oceans strengthening these types of disasters;

– The rise in sea levels will produce coastal flooding;

– The condition of habitats such as coral reefs and forests could the extinction of many animal and plant species in the ecosystem caused fluctuations lead.

– Heat waves, the elderly and children killed, especially in Europe;

– Forests, fields and cities faced cumbersome new pests and more mosquito-borne diseases.

Here are some tips to help prevent global warming:

Reduce your impact on the displacement

Much of the CO2 produced in the world comes from cars, trucks and airplanes. Here are some simple, practical things to reduce its motion emitted in their CO2 emissions.

Reduce the number of miles that you drive with public transport, walking, cycling or car sharing:

When stop driving only 16 miles per week than we normally handle, remove about 227 kg of CO2 emissions per year. Use the respective vehicle only when necessary and do not use it for short trips that can be done on foot. If you should to stop the car for more than a minute off during the waiting period.

<img title="

Among other benefits of reforestation as a contribution to the environment and habitat of species (biodiversity) and water conservation, trees capture CO2 during growth.

Do not buy products with many envelopes and packages:

You can 545 kg of CO2 when to waste it produces reduced by 10% the amount.

The Huffington Post  |  By James Gerken Posted: 08/19/2013 6:39 pm EDT  |  Updated: 08/19/2013 9:35 pm EDT