IPCC Third Assessment Report

IPCC
Assessment reports:
First (1990)
1992 sup.
Second (1995)
Third (2001)
Fourth (2007)
Fifth (2014)
UNFCCC | WMO | UNEP

The IPCC Third Assessment Report, Climate Change 2001, is an assessment of available scientific and socio-economic information on climate change by the IPCC. The IPCC was established in 1988 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) "... to assess scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation."^{[IPCC website]} The Third Assessment Report (TAR) is the third of a series of assessments; it has been superseded by the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), released in 2007.

Statements of the IPCC or information from the TAR are often used as a reference showing a scientific consensus on the subject of global warming, although a small minority of scientists take issue with the UN assessments (see also Global warming controversy and Politics of global warming).

Contents 1 Working groups 2 Conclusions 3 Basis of predictions 4 References 5 See also 6 External links

Working groups

The IPCC is organized as three working groups (WG) and a task force [1]:

• WGI: Scientific aspects of climate (see IPCC TAR WG1 2001).
• WGII: Vulnerability, consequences, and options (see IPCC TAR WG2 2001).
• WGIII: Limitation and mitigation options (see IPCC TAR WG3 2001).
• Task Force: National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme [2]

WG I covers the same areas as the Second Assessment Report (SAR) of 1995, but WG II & III cover slightly different areas in the TAR.

Conclusions

The key conclusions of Working Group I (The Scientific Basis, Summary for Policymakers, in IPCC AR3 WG1 2001) were:

1. An increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system (The global average surface temperature has increased over the 20th century by about 0.6°C; Temperatures have risen during the past four decades in the lowest 8 kilometres of the atmosphere; Snow cover and ice extent have decreased)
2. Emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols due to human activities continue to alter the atmosphere in ways that are expected to affect the climate (Anthropogenic aerosols are short-lived and mostly produce negative radiative forcing; Natural factors have made small contributions to radiative forcing over the past century)
3. Confidence in the ability of models to project future climate has increased (Complex physically based climate models are required to provide detailed estimates of feedbacks and of regional features. Such models cannot yet simulate all aspects of climate (e.g., they still cannot account fully for the observed trend in the surface-troposphere temperature difference since 1979) and there are particular uncertainties associated with clouds and their interaction with radiation and aerosols. Nevertheless, confidence in the ability of these models to provide useful projections of future climate has improved due to their demonstrated performance on a range of space and time-scales [3].)
4. There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities
5. Human influences will continue to change atmospheric composition throughout the 21st century
6. Global average temperature and sea level are projected to rise under all IPCC SRES scenarios.

The TAR estimate for the climate sensitivity is 1.5 to 4.5 °C; and the average surface temperature is projected to increase by 1.4 to 5.8 Celsius degrees over the period 1990 to 2100, and the sea level is projected to rise by 0.1 to 0.9 metres over the same period. The wide range in predictions is based upon several different scenarios that assume different levels of future CO₂ emissions. Each scenario then has a range of possible outcomes associated with it. The most optimistic outcome assumes an aggressive campaign to reduce CO₂ emissions, while the most pessimistic is a "business as usual" scenario. The more realistic scenarios fall in between.

Basis of predictions

IPCC predictions are based on the same models used to establish the importance of the different factors in global warming. These models need data about anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols. These data are predicted from economic models based on 35 different scenarios. Scenarios go from pessimistic to optimistic, and predictions of global warming depend on the kind of scenario considered.

IPCC uses the best available predictions and their reports are under strong scientific scrutiny. The IPCC concedes that there is a need for better models and better scientific understanding of some climate phenomena, as well as the uncertainties involved. Critics assert that the available data is not sufficient to determine the real importance of greenhouse gases in climate change. Sensitivity of climate to greenhouse gases may be overestimated or underestimated because of some flaws in the models and because the importance of some external factors may be misestimated. The predictions are based on scenarios, and the IPCC did not assign any probability to the 35 scenarios used.

References

The Third Assessment Report consists of the following reports from each of the three Working Groups, and a Synthesis Report. On-line text and PDFs are available at GRID-Arendal (a collaborating centre of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)). Additional reports and documents can be found at the IPCC's documents web page.

• IPCC TAR WG1 (2001), Houghton, J.T.; Ding, Y.; Griggs, D.J.; Noguer, M.; van der Linden, P.J.; Dai, X.; Maskell, K.; and Johnson, C.A., ed., Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-80767-0, http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc%5Ftar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm  (pb: 0-521-01495-6).

• IPCC TAR WG2 (2001), McCarthy, J. J.; Canziani, O. F.; Leary, N. A.; Dokken, D. J.; and White, K. S., ed., Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Contribution of Working Group II to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-80768-9, http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc%5Ftar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg2/index.htm  (pb: 0-521-01500-6).

• IPCC TAR WG3 (2001), Metz, B.; Davidson, O.; Swart, R.; and Pan, J., ed., Climate Change 2001: Mitigation, Contribution of Working Group III to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-80769-7, http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc%5Ftar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg3/index.htm  (pb: 0-521-01502-2).

• IPCC TAR SYR (2001), Watson, R. T.; and the Core Writing Team, ed., Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report, Contribution of Working Groups I, II, and III to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-80770-0, http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/vol4/english/index.htm  (pb: 0-521-01507-3).

See also

• Attribution of recent climate change
• Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, and an international conference on the topic.
• Climate change
• Carbon dioxide equivalent
• Effects of global warming
• Energy conservation
• Energy policy
• Global warming controversy
• Global climate model
• World energy resources and consumption

External links

• Climate Change 2001, IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR)
• IPCC Assessment & Special Reports (including TAR)
• A summary of the Third Assessment Report by GreenFacts.