Latest Climate Science Underscores Urgent Need to Reduce Heat-trapping Emissions

From Union of Concerned Scientists

There's a downloadable pdf version on the site.

Major developments in climate change science have been reported since the

publication of the comprehensive 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).[1]
Recent publications indicate that the consequences of climate change
are already occurring at a faster pace and are of greater magnitude
than the climate models used by the IPCC projected. A few of the most
compelling findings are summarized below.

Stern attacks politicians over climate 'devastation'

By David Adam for the Guardian

Politicians have failed to take on board the severe consequences of failing to cut world carbon emissions, according to Nicholas Stern, the economist commissioned by Gordon Brown to analyse the impact of climate change.

His stark warning about the potentially "devastating" consequences of
global warming came as scientists issued a desperate plea last night
for world leaders to curb greenhouse gas emissions or face an
ecological and social disaster.

More than 2,500 climate experts from 80 countries at an emergency summit in Copenhagen said there is now "no excuse" for failing to act on global warming. A failure to
agree strong carbon reduction targets at political negotiations this
year could bring "abrupt or irreversible" shifts in climate that "will
be very difficult for contemporary societies to cope with".

Carbon Emissions Creating Acidic Oceans Not Seen Since Dinosaurs

By David Abram for The Guardian/UK

Chemical change placing 'unprecedented' pressure on marine life and could cause widespread extinctions, warn scientists

Human pollution is turning the seas into acid so quickly that the
coming decades will recreate conditions not seen on Earth since the
time of the dinosaurs, scientists will warn today.

A gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) at the Ojo de Liebre in the Baja California peninsula (Photograph: ALEJANDRO ZEPEDA/EPA)

The rapid acidification is caused by the massive amounts of carbon dioxide
belched from chimneys and exhausts that dissolve in the ocean. The chemical change is placing "unprecedented" pressure on marine life such as shellfish and lobsters and could cause widespread extinctions, the experts say.