Initial IPCC Predictions on Global Temperature Rise Remarkably Accurate

The tremendous complexity combined with the short-term and local variability of climate make accurately forecasting global climate change one of the most challenging and daunting tasks ever undertaken by the scientific community. Nonetheless, spurred on by growing number of signs that significant climate changes were under way, climate scientists from around the world assembled by UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been attempting to do just that since the IPCC’s creation in 1988 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), four years prior to establishment of an international agreement on climate change mitigation and adaptation, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The IPCC’s fourth global climate assessment report (AR4) was published in 2007. The fifth (AR5) is due to be finalized in 2014, putting “greater emphasis on assessing the socioeconomic aspects of climate change and implications for sustainable development, risk management and the framing of a response through both adaptation and mitigation.”

Now just past the midway point for the 1990-2030 period over which the IPCC issued its initial predictions for global temperature as part of its First Assessment Report (AR 1), two researchers decided it was an opportune time to evaluate their accuracy and performance. The results: the increase in global mean temperature predicted for the period 1990-2010 have turned out to be somewhat surprisingly and unexpectedly accurate.

Actual vs. Predicted Increases in Mean Global Temperature

As report authors David J. Frame of New Zealand’s Victoria University and Daithi A. Stone of the Lawrence Livermore Berkeley National Laboratory note in their paper published in Nature Climate Change, IPCC climate change scientists have now been working on the problem of forecasting global mean temperature “for a period comparable to the prediction and the time scales over which climate is expected to respond to these types of external forcing,” a reference to the effects human carbon and greenhouse gas emissions are intensifying the Greenhouse Gas Effect.

Continued work over the course of ensuing time establishes a baseline of actual historical global mean temperature to be recorded that addresses a key statistical weakness in evaluating the accuracy of predictions of long-term climate change.

Based on their models, IPCC scientists in AR 1 came up with a predicted increase in global mean of 0.7°-1.5° C (1.26°-2.7° F) between 1990-2030, with a best estimate of an increase of 1.1° C (1.98° F). Following a linear trend, this corresponds to a best estimate of global warming of 0.55° C (0.99° F) from 1990-2010.

Frame and Stone collected official statistical data used to calculate global mean temperature and annual changes from agencies around the world for the period 1990-2010. Adding an adjustment to account for natural climate variability that weren’t incorporated in the IPCC’s initial 1990 climate forecast they “found the results fit almost perfectly with the predictions made 22 years ago,” according to a PhysOrg report.

Remarkable Accuracy

The researchers said the accuracy of the results is remarkable in light of the actual course of climate events, events that could not have been foreseen, such as the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, reduction of GHG emissions in Russia or the rise in emissions from China’s ongoing rapid industrialization.

“Even though the climate research community clearly has much work to do to improve regional climate predictability—the most relevant scales for most impacts—it seems highly likely that even in 1990 we understood the climate system well enough to make credible statements about how its aggregate properties would change on timescales out to a couple of decades, even in the presence of considerable uncertainty surrounding the exact forcing trajectory,” the authors write.

“Exact forcing trajectory” refers to the uncertainty of human greenhouse gas emissions over the period.

“As is always the case in science, we cannot know for certain that the 1990 prediction was accurate for the right reasons, but given the apparent absence of any credible alternative theories and the robustness of the prediction, this evaluation strongly supports the contention that the climate is responding to enhanced levels of GHGs in accordance with historical expectations,” they conclude.

Troubling in terms of efforts to reduce human carbon and GHG emissions, however, is their finding on the degree to which the stock of GHGs already accumulated in the atmosphere overwhelms the flow of emissions year to year.

“Most remarkably, if anthropogenic forcings had been held at 1989 levels over the past two decades the resulting 0.10°-0.48° C trend would still have been consistent with the observed trend and not with the zero trend: as climate predicatability comes from the forcing [i.e. anthropogenic GHG emissions], it is governed primarily by the accumulating stock of GHGs, that is, concentrations, and is relatively insensitive to short-term details associated with the flow of emissions.”

*Graphic credit: UN IPCC, AR 4

Andrew Burger
Andrew Burger
A product of the New York City public school system, Andrew Burger went on to study geology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, work in the wholesale money and capital markets for a major Japanese bank and earn an MBA in finance.

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  1. Namaste,
    IPCC is now presented its new report. In this connection I would like to bring to your kind information some points:

    1. “According to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, sea levels on average have been 20 centimeters higher than they were in the 1880s. Water levels are rising at 3.2 millimeters per year, which is double the 20th century trend.”

    In the past on several forums I made the following observations but nobody come forward to respond my question: (1) San Francisco Airport is in the Ocean waters. Was there any rise in sea water level at this point? — so far no change [I visited several times]; (2) In Italy along the coast, traditional and historical wells showed no change in sea level; (3) It is generally argued that the sea level raise submerged the Sundarbans at the mouth of Ganga River in the Bay of Bengal and villages along Bramhaputra River in Bangladesh — all this is inaccurate statements. Here the silt deposition from these two mighty rivers causing the submergence of Mangroves and hutments; (4) Also, destruction of Coastline for commercial activities and destruction of Mangroves allowed sea water entering into nearby villages and thus people are attributing it to sea level rise; (5) In several parts, sea sand is lifted for other uses and thus causing the sea water entering in to nearby areas; and (6) Boston area was filled [artificially built] and with the storm surges it looks something happened.

    Also, sea temperatures are higher in some places and some other places they are cool associated with general circulation patterns existing generally in those zones. These infect the sea level temporarily — natural variations. Unless we analyze region-wise by taking into account on ground variations in the light of general circulation, natural variations & physical impacts, all model estimates are speculative in nature and create sensation that pickup media.

    2. “ocean acidification [due to higher CO2 levels] and warming are causing species like jellyfish to overrun other species in the sea and bleaching and decreasing growth of coral reefs”

    In the oceans, temperature change and along with carbon dioxide change is a historical fact. They clearly indicate a clear cut cyclic variations — I put this in my book “Climate Change: Myths & Realities” published in 2008. As this is not new the life in the ocean automatically adopt to these variations. There is a need to look into other man induced pollution factors in to ocean waters angle to understand their impact on coral reefs as well other species in the ocean. Our research, therefore, must direct to understand the cause and effect mechanism. With the preconceived ideas we go nowhere. This is exactly what is happening now. This is bad science — though many a times such studies are published in reputed journals, as editorial boards work “you scratch my back and I scratch your back”.

    3. “The physical principles behind climate change are simple, well known since the 1800s, and won’t wait for this fake debate to end.”

    This point I did not understand, here climate change means a de facto global warming or all issues pertaining to changes in climate. As per global warming there are no clear cut physical principles. We can see in the literature every other day a new issue comes up. Now, even IPCC also changed and telling urban-heat-island affect also contributing to global warming by about 10% — initially they did not accounted this –. There are several other issues like natural variation component, solar components, ecological changes components [that influence local and regional climate], physical impacts on ecological sensitive zones like ice, etc. It is not clear on the link between carbon dioxide and temperature. It is a statistical link. It varies with the accumulation of data series period and it does not explain the physical relationship.

    The main component that at present influencing climate and extremes is the natural variations — systematic & irregular variations — and ecological changes such as changes in land use and land cover — effect local and regional climate and thus change the natural variations to that extent. At Antarctica the sea ice melt in the last six years is above the mean while it is below the mean in Arctic area.

    Few more points:
    ,
    Three things to consider need answers:

    1) Why don’t they just show the annual temperature graph? They always thought it most appropriate in the past.
    2) Why do they begin this graph in 1850? Anthropogenic Climate Change, according to their report, could not have started before *19* 50 (a hundred years later). So why isn’t the chart, and all the ballyhooed temperature increase, started in 1950?
    3) If AGW didn’t start (couldn’t start, actually, as we hadn’t yet added the CO2 to the atmosphere), what caused the temperature rise starting in 1890? Whatever that cause is, what made that cause stop and suddenly change to CO2 -caused in 1950?

    Models present a monotonic increase as the models are built with some preconceived notions — that means what you are able to think only goes in to the model.

    Nature in fact acts differently based on several unknown and known factors. So, the real pattern goes on changing with the time.

    However, this is affected by scientists manipulation of data and changes in land use and land cover as weather is highly sensitive to such variations. Also, we are experiencing changes due to man’s physical actions and manipulation of terrain. These changes are alarmingly increasing with population growth and changing technologies to meet their lifestyles and needs.
    In global models such factors taken in to account rarely. Also natural disasters do change the terrain conditions. And above all, the natural variations are not the same over different parts of the globe.

    Instead of talking on a generalized term “global warming”, it is more appropriate to use the term “regional climate changes”. This is more useful in regional planning.

    Global temperature data is manipulated, global carbon dioxide data is manipulated. Meteorological data collection is changing with the time over land and in/on oceans with network and instrumentation changes. Satellite data is highly manipulated!!!

    In 70s & 80s, before encroachment of global warming in to climate studies, before starting analyzing rainfall data by clubbing the rainfall of different rain gauge stations, we used to homogenize the rain gauge stations in terms of rainfall patterns. This helped to understand the climate of different parts in a region. This helped better interpretation of the results so analyzed in terms of agriculture or water management. It appears this is lacking in IPCC studies and counter positive and negative trends giving false notions or predictions.

    Other important issue is, IPCC talks of probability. Probabilities relevance with data but not number of people accepted it. This is bad science. In science the phrase 70% probable or 90% probable had definite meanings. They imply controlled trials, they imply numerical quantitative information objectively assessed. If you ask the IPCC they will tell you that when they use the term 95% probable it is based on the expert opinion of a group of people gathered around a table. It is completely wrong to use probability terminology to describe what is albeit an expert opinion.

    Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy

  2. IPCC Report on Climate Change: Myths & Realities

    Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
    Formerly Chief Technical Advisor – WMO/UN & Expert – FAO/UN
    Fellow, Andhra Pradesh Akademy of Sciences
    Convenor, Forum for a Sustainable Environment
    jeevanandareddy@yahoo.com

    Summary & Conclusions
    It is argued by the IPCC that models that predict future temperature scenarios are based on physical principles but at the same time accepting the fact that there are several other localized or globalized factors contribute to it. Such factors rarely accounted in their models. Thus, there are no clear cut physical principles concerning global warming. It is basically statistical inferences that vary with data and period. IPCC uses number of people accepted that prediction to validate it. In science unless otherwise they are verified by ground realities, they are generally termed as Hypothetical, which has no meaning in science. IPCC sensationalizing the impacts based on such hypothetical predictions on several processes, including agriculture.
    IPCC, UN, Media, agencies like World Bank, Oxfam, CGIAR, etc using Climate Change synonymous to Global Warming. This is not so, Global Warming is one component of Climate Change in which natural variations play vital role with extremes forming a part. World Meteorological Organization of United Nation (WMO/UN) published a manual on “Climate Change” as back as 1966. It dealt with methods to separate man-induced variations from natural variations. Natural variations are beyond human control, only we have to adapt to them. On the contrary, the impact of global warming must present a trend, increasing or decreasing to ascertain its impacts. IPCC and UN bodies are talking individual events that are part of natural variations as associated with increased global temperatures. These are highlighted by media with misleading headings. By attributing the impacts associated with normal climate extremes within the limits of Climate Normal and rhythms present in meteorological parameters to global warming is dangerous.
    Now IPCC itself has agreed that the 100% raise in global temperature is not associated with the raise in Anthropogenic Greenhouse gases and agreed that around 10% is contributed by urban-heat-island effects – this contributes to rise in night time temperature and lower layers of troposphere temperature. These are localized. Same is the case with changes in land use and land cover, known as Ecological changes. Majority of meteorological stations are in urban areas and thus urban-heat-island effect is going to be added to global warming component and on the contrary meteorological stations are sparsely located in rural areas that generate cold-island-effect due to increased activity of irrigated agriculture and spread of irrigation reservoirs is not going in to global warming component – however, this may create a trend in precipitation at local and regional scales like that seen in AP precipitation. In all around 50% of raise shown under global warming is influencing the local and regional aspects but not national and global aspects like sea level raise, ice melt, etc. Southern hemisphere with less number of urban areas, with less ecological changes and with more area under ocean waters showed lower temperature raise over the average pattern. In the case of Northern Hemisphere with more urban areas, more ecological changes and with less area under ocean waters showed higher temperature rise over the average pattern.
    It is a fact that in the last 17 years no change in temperature including ocean temperatures; ice melt in Arctic and Antarctic zones are within the standard deviation around the mean; no change in precipitation – monsoons, etc. In association with local conditions and natural disasters the sea levels show rise in some places, fall in some places and no change in majority of places. Ice is confined to outside the South Polar Ring and inside the North Polar Ring. That means South Polar ice melt is the true reflection of global warming impact on ice melt. At present not showing any melt in the Southern Polar zones. They are on the contrary building the ice. North Polar zone loosing the ice but this is within the long-term standard deviation around the mean – within the accepted statistical terms. At North Pole zone impacts other than weather also contributing to ice melt. Alaska shows a large fall in sea level. Along the USA Coasts large part showed a 0 to 1.0 feet fall, this may be associated with human activity along the coastal zones, tidal erosion, etc. [San Francisco airport does not show any sea level rise] Also error variations are far higher than the estimated rise, which is not statistically significant. In addition all these localized natural variations play vital role – even the global temperature showed a 60-year cycle – sine curve. Cyclonic activities including Hurricanes and Typhoons – and precipitation present cyclic variations. With the growing population of the planet builds more structures in the path of cyclonic storms – that includes Hurricanes & Typhoons – and Tornadoes, and thus makes ordinary storms more damaging. Also, human impacts & Earthquakes-Volcanoes, oil-gas drilling activities, etc play vital role in areas related to impacts of global warming.
    Food production, food security & nutrition security are not affected by global warming: Floods and droughts are part of rhythms in precipitation. However their impacts are modified by agriculture technology and ecological changes. Food includes not only agriculture products but also include several others like Dairy products, Poultry products, Sea & Water products [fish & prawns], Animal products [meat], etc. These are affected by agriculture technology and pollution components and not to global warming as crops adapt to temperature regimes which is evident from extremes in temperature given under climate normal data. These along with ecological changes are the major contributors of destruction of biodiversity – on land, in water including oceans. Pollution, more particularly from new agriculture technology, is the major source of Health Hazards globally and not associated to Global Warming. Adulterated food, now-a-days is playing vital role in health hazards. Global Warming is in fact a brain Child to counter Environmental Movement against pollution, more particularly agriculture pollution, initiated in late 60s and early 70s. In agriculture perspective, stop wastage of food; plan better utilization of water resources; shift from chemical inputs to organic inputs technology that help reducing pollution and public health aspects; do not forget that the losses due to intense weather systems increase with the population growth. Globally cold waves are affecting more vulnerable people than heat waves. Wild fires have nothing to do with global warming. Dry weather helps spread of fire over wet weather, which is nothing to do with global warming.

    Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
    Presented at a ne day seminar “Climate change – Impact on Agriculture in India”, at NIN, 7th Dec. 2013

  3. A note on “IPCC’s WG-II AR5 with reference to India” — submitted to Prime Minister of India on 4-4-2014
    — the issue is not global warming but the issue is Climate change & good governance —

    Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
    Formerly Chief Technical Advisor – WMO/UN & Expert – FAO/UN
    Fellow, Andhra Pradesh Akademy of Sciences
    Convenor, Forum for a Sustainable Environment
    Jeevananda_reddy@yahoo.com

    Summary & Conclusions: The Earth’s climate is dynamic and always changing through a natural cycle. What we are experiencing now is part of this system. We expect from this pattern, that areas of India that are under southwest monsoon influence will have to bear the burden of frequent droughts after 2016 for a period of three decades. In this period we expect higher temperatures. The areas with northeast monsoon influence, this period will be six decades. The frequency of occurrence of floods in rivers follows this pattern. This is nothing to do with global warming. We are destroying water resources and agriculture with the new technologies that meet the greed of few MNCs. In IPCC scenario we are not looking at the evil “pollution” but worried more on anthropogenic greenhouse gases as it is easy way to save MNCs. IPCC is looking at number of people supporting their view point. In science number of people has no meaning. It has to be validated from ground realities. Here the quantity over rides the quality. The agriculture issues dealt in the present IPCC report are nothing new. They were discussed since early 90s and also outlined by World Bank in its 2013 report. In fact these issues were discussed elaborately in terms of models, risks & adaptations to climate change in my books relating to global issues in 1993, Indian issues in 2002 and practical issues in 2011. One-third of the production is going as waste and thus the equivalent of natural resources and investments are going as waste. Large share of river flow join seas and oceans. Here politics play the vital role and not the global warming. With the industrialization, the developmental activities moved to coastal zones. This affected severely the coastline that used to protect from weather disasters and thus affecting the livelihood of millions of people. Pollution is affecting the life in the coastal waters. The major culprit is the air, water, soil & food pollution that needs immediate action plan and not the pseudo global warming. We must not forget the fact that climate change is not the de-facto global warming. They are quite different. When we discuss the issues of climate change, this must be kept in mind.
    IPCC versus Global Warming versus Climate Change: Is IPCC using global warming synonymous to climate change? The so-called impacts on nature relate to global warming or climate change? Global warming is a trend in temperature and climate change is a trend and rhythmic variations, in which extremes form part, in temperature and rainfall. During drought years the temperature and evaporation goes up and during flood years the temperature and evaporation goes down. My studies in early 80s showed that cube root of precipitation follows the global solar radiation and evaporation. Because of this interrelation between rainfall and temperature, the rhythmic variation present opposite patterns. My studies in late 80s showed that Indian southwest monsoon precipitation and thus the global temperature followed a 60-year cycle. WMO released a press note on extreme weather events of 2013 on the occasion of World Meteorological Day (23-3-2014) in which it observed droughts and warming conditions in Southern Hemisphere Nations. My studies of early 1980s on the rhythmic variations in precipitation data series of stations in Southern Hemisphere Nations and projections showed below the average precipitation during 2013. Though in the Southern Hemisphere nations presented cycles of different periods in the precipitation data series [52 to 66 years], coincidentally majority of them showed below the average pattern during 2013. The higher temperature regime in Southern Hemisphere Nations could be attributed to the dry weather prevailing in 2013. This is not part of global warming but it is a part of climate change – natural variation. These influence the water resources availability and thus agriculture.
    IPCC, states that “Global Warming” is the increase in the average temperature of global surface air and oceans since about 1950, and to continuing increases in those temperatures. In the last 17 years there is no such increase in global temperature. IPCC [AR4 – 2007] states that “confirms that global warming is now unequivocal and states with more than 90% certainty that increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases produced by human activity very likely has been the primary cause of rising temperatures worldwide since 1950”. IPCC [AR5 – 2013] changed 90% and very likely to 95-100% and extremely likely. It also states that “Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes. It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together”. All this means that around 50% of the trend in global average temperature starting from 1950 is termed as global warming. The rest is not associated with global phenomenon but primarily associated with local and regional changes in association with ecological changes – land use and land cover changes –. Though they contribute to global temperature in averaging process but their impact is confined to local and regional issues only. Here heat-island effect may be over emphasized in the averaging due to dense network of met stations and less emphasized cold-island effect due to sparse network of met stations. The disparity is growing with growth of population-urbanization and wet-land agriculture — these are associated with changes in land use and land cover. Because of this, the Southern Hemisphere temperature is lower than that of Northern Hemisphere. Because of this the NASA satellite data showed no increasing trend in global average temperature – this was later removed from the internet & I included this in my book.
    Very recently British Royal Society and US National Academy of Sciences brought out an overview “Climate change: Evidence & causes”. The report included a figure of annual march of global temperature anomaly along with 10-year, 30-year & 60- year moving average patterns using 1850 to 2010 data series. WMO presented a manual on “Climate change” in 1966; and in this manual presented moving average technique as one of the technique to separate trend from rhythmic/systematic variations. Here, the 60-year moving average pattern showed the trend after eliminating 60-year rhythmic variation. The trend showed less than 0.5 oC raise during 1950 to 2010. After correcting this figure for overestimation and underestimation factors discussed above, is expected to be less than 0.5 oC. As per AR5 summary, around 50% of this [far less than 0.25 oC] is contributed by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, which is termed as global warming. This is insignificant to impact nature. Thus, by 2100, global warming component is expected to rise by less than 0.5 degree Celsius!!!
    Impact on agriculture & related issues: Deccan Chronicle, a daily News paper from Hyderabad dated 20th June 2013 presented a report “World Bank releases report, paints grim picture of future – Global warming to dry up rivers, inundate cities”. It observed that India’s monsoon will become highly unpredictable if the world’s average temperature rises by 2oC in the next two-three decades. Below this article presented my observations also. Indian agriculture scientists in the same tone and tenor forecasted using El Nino saying that it is destroying agriculture, production is coming down by around 20%, severe losses to dry-land agriculture, affecting northeast monsoon, etc. By looking at yield levels versus El Nino intensity [1–weak, 2–medium and 3–strong], there is no correlation; and yet they deduced such strange conclusions. In fact the yield is a function of chemical inputs, which I published more than a decade back. Also, reports after reports were published saying that production is less than the demand and thus price rise and affecting food security. At the same time FAO report presents that globally 30% of what is produced is going as waste. This is 40-50% in India. That means to that extent the natural resources & finances used are going as waste. In India, the main reasons for such losses are lack of storage facilities, and timely transport facilities. All these are nothing to do with global warming but it relates to poor governance and business manipulations.
    Political effect: In India, though planned to link-rivers to improve the quality of life in rainfed areas, vote bank politics creating more problems under the disguise of interstate disputes on water sharing on one side and World Bank on the other side. Even Prime Minister, the President & the highest court in India is colluding with the ruling junta on this issue. World Bank and its PR groups are working against building dams in India. Now they say climate change as a culprit. Unfortunately, climate change is a part of dam development. Rainfall variations were taken in to account while building dams. In the case of Andhra Pradesh UPA [this will be the same with NDA government or any other government] government is playing vote bank political game with Polavaram project under the disguise of state bifurcation. This project should have been completed by this time. In the case of Krishna River water sharing UPA government appointed a tribunal consisting of three judges of their choice to favor Karnataka & Maharashtra at the cost of Andhra Pradesh. At present Andhra Pradesh is getting allocated water [by the first tribunal] in 75% of the years. The new tribunal as vote bank package through technical fraud, proposed new allocations. Andhra Pradesh will be getting the allocated water in only 25% of the years. These are nothing to do with global warming but it relates to governance – political effect. This will affect the water availability and agriculture.
    IPCC’s WG-II AR5: It is the second of three assessment reports that assesses the impacts of climate change, adaptation and vulnerability of human and natural systems, runs around as highlighted by UN climate change secretariat in Bonn “The IPCC report makes clear that people around the world are already suffering from climate change, as it directly affects their livelihoods, reducing crops, destroying homes and raising food prices, and that this will accelerate if climate change is left unchecked – it implies global warming and not climate change –. It provides a detailed assessment of regional aspects, which give a much clearer understanding of climate impacts in different regions.” Touching the human conflict aspects, the secretariat said, “Among other things, the report warns that climate change increases the risk of armed conflict around the world because it worsens poverty and economic shocks. Therefore, climate change is already becoming a determining factor in the national security policies of states.” All these hypothetical statements are made with political interests; and have nothing to do climate change. We have seen some of these in the above sections. Let me present important paras from three chapters:
    Chapter-3: Fresh water resources — under the executive summary of key risks at the global scale, IPCC observed “So far there are no widespread observations of changes in flood magnitude and frequency due to anthropogenic climate changes but projects imply variations in the frequency of floods (medium agreement, limited evidence). Flood hazards are projected to increase in parts of south, southeast and northeast Asia, tropical Africa, and South America (medium agreement, limited evidence). Since the mid-20th Century, socio-economic losses from flooding have increased mainly due to greater exposure and vulnerability (high confidence). Global flood risks will increase in the future partly due to climate change (medium agreement, limited evidence. There is little or no observational evidence yet that soil erosion and sediment loads have been altered significantly due to changing climate (medium agreement, limited evidence). However, increases in heavy rainfall and temperatures are projected to change soil erosion and sediment yields, although the extent of these changes is highly uncertain and depends on rainfall seasonality, and land cover, and soil management practices.
    Chapter-7: Food security and production systems — Though crop production relates to the fresh water resources, under executive summary of this chapter, IPCC observed “The effects of climate change on crop production are evident in several regions of the world (high confidence). All aspects of food security are potentially affected by climate change, including food access, utilization, and price stability (high confidence).
    Chapter-24: Asia – under executive summary, IPCC observed “Warming trends and increasing temperature extremes have been observed across most of the Asian regions over the past century (high confidence). Increasing numbers of warm days and decreasing numbers of cold days have been observed, with the warming trend continuing into the new millennium. Precipitation trends including extremes are characterized by strong variability, with both increasing and decreasing trends observed in different parts and seasons of Asia.
    This is exactly what I was advocating (high confidence) since long wherein the observed changes in nature are mainly associated with physical impacts due to human action and natural variations; and not with the anthropogenic global warming. Also, so far the increase of anthropogenic global warming is insignificant to influence nature and weather systems. We are working in a climate system that showed high seasonal and annual variations. We can see this from Climate Normal books. We need to make better and efficient use of the available resources. We must choose technologies that will not destroy our natural resources. We must look at pollution and not at anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
    Concluding remarks: Unfortunately, IPCC and other agencies are attributing all ills of the society to global warming, a phenomenon that is insignificant to influence nature. The issues that are raised under water resources and agriculture by IPCC are nothing to do with global warming but they are primarily related to poor governance and human physical impacts on nature. We must adapt to natural variations in climate. This is what our forefathers did. We need to control pollution [air, water, land & food] and reduce the wastage in food and water resources through better management. We must use local technologies that help in this direction.
    You can find discussions on the issues discussed above in the following books:
    Reddy, S. J. (1993) Agroclimatic/Agrometeorological Techniques: As applicable to dry-land agriculture in developing countries. http://www.scribd.com/Google Books, [Book Review appeared in Agric. For. Meteorol., 67:325-327, 1994], 205p.
    Reddy, S. J. (2000) Andhra Pradesh Agriculture: Scenario of last four decades. Hyderabad, India, 104p.
    Reddy, S. J. (2002) Dry-land agriculture in India: An agroclimatological and agrometeorological perspective. BS Publ. Hyderabad, India, 429p.
    Reddy, S. J. (2007) Agriculture & Environment. Hyderabad, India, 112p.
    Reddy, S.J. (2008) Climate change: Myths & Realities. http://www.scribd.com/Google books, 176p.
    Reddy, S. J. (2011) “Green” Green Revolution: Agriculture in the perspective of climate change. http://www.scribd.com/Google books, 160p.
    Gupta, R.K. & Reddy, S. J. (Eds.) (1999) Advanced technologies in meteorology. Tata McGraw-Hill Publ. Comp. Ltd., New Delhi, India, 549p.
    WMO (World Meteorological Organization) (1966) Climate change. Tech. Note No. 79, prepared by J. M. Mitchell et al., Genewa, Switzerland.

    Note: A UN Report issued on 6th April 2014 from Oslo observed “The September report raised the probability that human actions, led by the use of fossil fuels, are the main cause of climate change since 1950 to at least 95 percent from 90. But opinion polls show voters are unpersuaded, with many believing that natural variations are the main cause.

    Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy

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