Scientists and Greenland Inuits confirm findings of leaked IPCC report
Due out later this year, early drafts of the Fifth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were leaked earlier this week, confirming what scientists have been saying now for years, even decades: global warming is real. Many see little change in the IPCC’s Fifth Report from its previous assessment published in 2007, albeit with ever-increased confidence in the science and better understanding of regional climate change. One notable difference is the projection of change in the Arctic, where observations of rapid warming and melting ice portend change at a scale of which previous assessments have only hinted.
“We’ve overloaded the atmosphere with heat-trapping gas, and the rest are just details,” says climate scientist Jason Box, who has spent the past twenty years studying the Greenland ice sheet. “There are manifold ways that climate change is having impact. The Arctic is a very useful bellwether of change – and it’s ringing.”
None have heard the ringing of change more than those that have lived in the Arctic for generations. For these people climate change is a day-to-day reality that threatens a way of life.
“The only humans around the North Pole, in the Arctic are us” says Inuit leader Aqqaluk Lynge, “We have been here for thousands of years, and we tell you things are changing. And you will feel it, maybe tomorrow.”
In fact, we don’t need to wait until “tomorrow” it feel it. Climate change is here, everywhere.
Featured image credit: Andrew Davies, courtesy flickr
