18 April 2006

What is the Economics of Climate Change?

The following report, complete with graphs can be found at the link above.

What is the Economics of Climate Change?
Discussion Paper
31 January 2006
Technical Annex The science of climate change
Our changing climate
1 We are seeing evidence of the greenhouse effect in practice. Measurements are compiled from thousands of weather stations all over the world – on land, from ships and buoys at sea, from balloon-borne sensors, and most recently from satellites. Together all these sources – now including satellite-derived data for the upper atmosphere1 – support the picture of a warming world.
2 The Earth has warmed by 0.7°C since 1900.2 All ten warmest years on record have occurred since 1994. The rate and scale of 20th century warming has been unprecedented for at least the past 1,000 years.3 The rate of sea level rise has doubled to 2 mm each year over the past 150 years.4 We can see the effects of this warming all around us - widespread retreat of mountain glaciers (very rapid retreats observed recently, e.g. Alaska – 14Km since 1980, Greenland – 5Km per year), decreased snow cover, and the lengthening of growing seasons in northern latitudes.5

You can find out more at the following:
http://www.met-office.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/

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