IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Working Group I

IPCC AR4 WGI: "The Physical Science of Climate Change"

The first installment to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report was released February 2, 2007. According to the IPCC, the Working Group I Report, "The Physical Science Basis", assesses the current state of knowledge about the natural and human drivers of climate change, reflecting the progress of the climate change science in the observation of the atmosphere, the Earth's surface and oceans. It provides a paleoclimatic perspective and evaluates the Earth's surface and oceans. Main topics include changes in atmospheric composition, observation of various climate parameters, coupling between changes in climate and biogeochemistry, evaluation of models and attribution of climate change.

Working Group I Report, "The physical science basis", assesses the current state of knowledge about the natural and human drivers of climate change, reflecting the progress of the climate change science in the observation of the atmosphere, the Earth's surface and oceans. It provides a paleoclimatic perspective and evaluates future projections of climate change. Main topics include changes in atmospheric composition, observation of various climate parameters, coupling between changes in climate and biogeochemistry, evaluation of models and attribution of climate change..

According to the IPCC, the report from Working Group I on the science of climate change answers the following questions:

• What progress has been made in understanding and attributing climate change?
• What do observations of the atmosphere, oceans, sea level, snow and ice tell us?
• How has climate been behaving in the last hundreds of thousands of years?
• Which are the projections of future changes?

For the full report, visit the IPCC website [5]. For a summary of the report, click here [1] (pdf). Relevant materials, including a statement from C2ES can be linked to from the "Related Content" box above.

Back to coverage of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report [6]