Source: IPCC
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yiTZm0y1YA
Date: 21/11/2013
Event: Climate Change 2013 Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis
Attribution: IPCC
People:
[The IPCC has produced a video on its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). The first part on the Working Group I contribution to AR5 is now available.]
Female narrator: The scientific evidence is stronger than ever. Better and more observations, improved understanding of the climate system response, further development of climate models - all point in the same direction. Human influence on the climate system is clear.
[Video footage of the IPCC Working Group I Preparatory Meeting in Stockholm.]
Qin Dahe [translated]: IPCC Working Group I's contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), is mainly focused on assessing the officially published literatures from the climate science over the past six years. By assessing the actual observations of the climate system, we have confirmed that the climate system is warming up.
Thomas Stocker: We have looked at all the evidences that tell us how the climate has changed, in the past and presently, looked at evidence to ask ourselves how we understand the climate system, what the causes of these changes are, and then take that knowledge and climate model simulation to ask ourselves what possible futures are there.
Female narrator: Many of these observed changes are unusual or unprecedented, on time scales of decades to millennia. Ice cores contain an abundance of information about climate. Paleoclimate records show a closer link between CO2 concentration and temperature. These trends are seen in current observations [here, at the 2:05 mark, there is a very brief flash of the "distinctly unscary temperature record" (h/t Paul Matthews.)]
[Heading: "The Atmosphere".]
Female narrator: Each of the last three decades has been warmer than all preceding decades since 1850, and the first decade of the 21st century has been the warmest.
Dennis L Hartmann: Well, I think in AR5 we've done a much better job of expressing exactly how much different contributions particular greenhouse gases have contributed to global warming in the past and how they will contribute in the future. We're able to demonstrate that the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has increased by 40% since pre-industrial times, mostly as a result of human activities, and that the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are higher than they've been for the last 800,000 years in Earth history.
[Heading: "The Cryosphere".]
Female narrator: The effects of global warming are most evident in some of the coldest places on the planet. Ice sheets and glaciers worldwide are losing mass. Permafrost is thawing, and the snow and sea ice cover in the Arctic is decreasing.
Josefino C Comiso: We're getting a lot of signals from the cryosphere, in terms of warming. The most visible signs of warming can be found in the Arctic.
Female narrator: Arctic sea ice extension has shown a downward trend since 1980. A downward trend is also observed at the Greenland ice sheet.
Josefino C Comiso: The amount of ice that's lost in Greenland is about six times as much as what was observed ten years ago.
Female narrator: The observed changes in the cryosphere have serious implications. With less snow and ice, more of the sun's energy is absorbed by the ocean and land surface.
[Heading: "The Ocean".]
Female narrator: This is one of the powerful climate change feedbacks that influences the whole climate system. Based on multiple lines of independent evidence, it's now virtually certain that the ocean is warming.
Monika Rhein: The warming of the ocean will continue, even if we stop the atmospheric CO2 concentrations to increase, because the time scale of the ocean circulation which connects the surface to the deep ocean is very large, in the sort of hundreds and thousands of years.
Female narrator: There are four major contributors to sea level rise - ocean heat uptake, melting of glaciers, reduction of ice sheets and changes in water storage on land. Improved scientific understanding has made scientists able to make a consistent sea level rise budget.
John A Church: Over the 20th century as a whole, the dominant contributions are ocean thermal expansion and the contribution of the loss of mass from glaciers. Sea level has risen by about 19 centimetres, by 1900 to 2010 and it's continuing to rise. We will have to adapt to sea level rise.
Female narrator: Our understanding of the climate system relies on combining observations and studies from many different scientific disciplines. With the help of supercomputers this knowledge can provide climate projections for the future.
[Heading: "Projections".]
Reto Knutti: Climate models play an absolutely crucial role in this Assessment Report. They are the only tools that allow us to say something quantitative about the future. Historically climate prediction has started with predicting weather, the atmosphere, then we included the ocean, and now we're at the point where we include every component in the Earth system, including the carbon cycle and the chemistry. So, that allows us to have a really comprehensive view of all the relevant processes for future climate change.
Female narrator: Climate change projections require information about future emissions or concentrations of greenhouse gases, aerosols and other anthropogenic drivers. A new set of scenarios was used to project the cumulative CO2 emissions in the future.
Thomas Stocker: Model simulations employing the RCP scenarios tell us we have a choice. We have a choice to live in a world in which climate change is limited to less than 2 degrees Celsius, or in a world that is warmer than 4 degrees Celsius.
Female narrator: Climate models employing the RCP scenarios provide policy-relevant information on a regional level. For the first time, Working Group I has developed an atlas of global and regional climate projections, which allows decision-makers to see how climate might change in their regions. This can facilitate more informed decisions on adaptation strategies.
[Heading: "The Key Messages".]
[More video footage of the IPCC Working Group I Preparatory Meeting in Stockholm. Dr Rajendra Pachauri is in shot for a few seconds.]
Thomas Stocker: We have three key messages. A warming in the climate system is unequivocal. That is based on the observations and the multiple lines of independent evidence. The second message is: human influence on the climate system is clear. This is resulting from the combination of model simulations with the observed climate change. The third message is that continued greenhouse gas emissions cause further climate change and constitute a multi-century commitment in the future. Therefore, we conclude: limiting climate change requires substantial and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.