[A-List] The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Climate Science Report

[c b]

The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Climate Science Report

http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.org/

It is more than three years since the drafting of text was completed
for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth
Assessment Report (AR4). In the meantime, many hundreds of papers have
been published on a suite of topics related to human-induced climate
change.

The purpose of this report is to synthesize the most policy-relevant
climate science published since the close-off of material for the last
IPCC report. The rationale is two-fold.

First, this report serves as an interim evaluation of the evolving
science midway through an IPCC cycle - IPCC AR5 is not due for
completion until 2013.

Second, and most important, the report serves as a handbook of science
updates that supplements the IPCC AR4 in time for Copenhagen in
December 2009, and any national or international climate change policy
negotiations that follow.

This report covers the range of topics evaluated by Working Group I of
the IPCC, namely the Physical Science Basis. This includes:

    * an analysis of greenhouse gas emissions and their atmospheric
concentrations, as well as the global carbon cycle;
    * coverage of the atmosphere, the land-surface, the oceans, and
all of the major components of the cryosphere (land-ice, glaciers, ice
shelves, sea-ice and permafrost);
    * paleoclimate, extreme events, sea level, future projections,
abrupt change and tipping points;
    * separate boxes devoted to explaining some of the common
misconceptions surrounding climate change science.

The report has been purposefully written with a target readership of
policy-makers, stakeholders, the media and the broader public. Each
section begins with a set of key points that summarises the main
findings. The science contained in the report is based on the most
credible and significant peer-reviewed literature available at the
time of publication. The authors primarily comprise previous IPCC lead
authors familiar with the rigor and completeness required for a
scientific assessment of this nature.