Heat waves, floods and other extreme weather worsen with global warming, suggests a major international climate report released today. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, obtained in draft form by USA TODAY, stresses that expanding cities and populations worldwide, also raise the odds of severe impacts from weather disasters.
"Unprecedented extreme weather and climate events" look likely in coming decades as a result of a changing climate, says the draft report. The final version was released early today by IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri at a meeting hosted by report sponsors, the World Meteorological Organization and United Nations Environment Programme, in Kampala, Uganda.
The IPCC and other scientific groups, such as the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, have reconfirmed over the past decade that greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, and deforestation, have led to a 1.4-degree rise in average global-surface-temperatures worldwide in the past century. That rise, the IPCC says, is likely to increase, with at least 2-in-3 odds that climate extremes have already worsened because of man-made greenhouse gases.