The second working group’s report conveys no corresponding sense of caution. The most pessimistic climate model projections are taken as if they were completely reliable and are applied to deriving the most alarming impacts in various sectors. Extreme weather events are attributed to man-made emissions in a way that the first working group does not endorse. “Multiple tipping points” – a concept that is not endorsed by the report of the first working group even under the most pessimistic of model projections for the 21st century – are freely referred to.
Ray Bates is Adjunct Professor of Meteorology at UCD. He was formerly Professor of Meteorology at the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen and a senior scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre. He has served as an Expert Reviewer of the current and previous IPCC Working Group I reports.
