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When Rep. Bart Gordon gavels the House Science and Technology Committee to order Thursday morning, it will mark Congress's first hearings on the latest United Nations-sponsored report on global warming.
But even before several authors of the prestigious report discuss its findings, other authors say the process is too slow.
The problem: Climate science is moving too quickly for the ponderous reporting system to keep up, they argue. Besides receiving a written consensus once every six years, policymakers need some form of interim report to keep abreast of the science of global warming and make important decisions, they add.
"Some of us believe that going to some updates, especially as the science is changing very rapidly, might be a very good tack to take," says Linda Mearns, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., and one of 15 lead authors on the chapter dealing with projections of global warming's regional effects.
Updates could come from the UN-affiliated group itself, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), or some other organization, such as the World Climate Research Program.
Reports on Global Warming Lag Behind The Science
Seeded on Wed Feb 14, 2007 3:00 PM EST
Article Source: Christian Science Monitor- Enjoy this article? Help vote it up the 'Vine.
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Another important part of the process which a few folks I've noticed either fail to grasp or simply take no issue lying about (emphasis mine):
While some critics hold that the report and its summary are the work of faceless bureaucrats, the main science report – more than 1,600 pages in its draft form – was compiled by 150 scientists as main authors, another 400 scientists as contributing authors, a team of review editors, and some 600 reviewers. The document went through two rounds of reviews. And unlike past efforts, review editors required chapter authors to respond to each responsible review comment.Although governments review, suggest changes, and decide whether to accept the completed 21-page summary for policymakers, the scientists assembled in Paris last week had the final say over the report's wording, notes Keith Dixon, a researcher at the GFDL and another IPCC participant. If countries fail to accept the final product by consensus, the summary gets published anyway. At worst, the IPCC changes the report's billing, dropping the "for policymakers" from the title.
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