U.S. leaks IPCC report confirming climate change is happening
A confidential draft of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been posted on the internet by U.S. officials, months before its scheduled publish date. The posting of the draft, which expresses increased confidence that global warming is human-caused and likely to have devastating consequences, is rumored to have been an attempt to water down the impact of the final report. But we’ll still put on our surprised face when the IPCC officially releases it. Meanwhile, evidence of climate change abounds: The vast system of air currents that fuels trade winds and weather patterns across the Pacific Ocean has weakened by 3.5 percent over the last 140 years, according to a new study in Nature. The slowdown is likely to make hurricanes stronger and fuel more rain in some places and droughts in others, and could impact marine life (and fishing) in the Pacific. Global warming computer models predict this very thing.
