Do You See What IPCC?

World braces for much-anticipated international climate report

Tired of guessing what President Bush will say tomorrow, some have moved on to guessing what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will say Feb. 2. Thanks to leaks from the ranks of more than 2,500 scientists and officials involved in the multi-year creation and review of the group’s fourth report, the chatter isn’t mere speculation. The report will apparently up the odds of humans being the main cause of post-1950 warming from “likely” (66-90 percent) to “very likely” (more than 90 percent), and refine predictions of global temperature rise, sea level surges, and other effects. It will also scold skeptics who say solar radiation is the main culprit. Noting the consensus-driven nature of the beast, one U.K. climate expert termed it “a very conservative document — that’s what makes it so scary.” But a researcher from the U.S., the country that funded half the IPCC science, says hold yer frickin’ horses: “The language is far from final. You can’t say what the IPCC says until it actually says it.”