Two days before the Feb. 2 release of the new summary report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Toronto Globe & Mail published a glimpse of its findings.
Even if people start reducing emissions now, the outlook for Planet Earth is grim, according to a story published Wednesday by the paper and distributed on wires worldwide.
Humans have already caused so much damage to the atmosphere that the effects of global warming will last for more than 1,000 years, according to a summary of a climate-change report being prepared by the world’s leading scientists.
The draft, seen by The Globe and Mail (Tuesday), also says evidence the world is heating up is now so strong it is “unequivocal” and predicts more frequent heat waves, droughts and rain storms, as well as more violent typhoons and hurricanes.
It concludes the higher temperatures observed during the past 50 years are so dramatically different from anything in the climate record that the last half-century period was likely the hottest in at least the past 1,300 years.
The TGM has a climate change page with links worth scanning for the Canadian perspective.