Home > Kevin E. Trenberth

• lead author of the 2001 IPCC Scientific Assessment of Climate Change.
• serves on the Scientific Steering Group for the Climate Variability and Predictability ( CLIVAR) program.
• serves on the Joint Scientific Committee of the World Climate Research Programme.
• honorary fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.
• 2000 Jule G. Charney award from the AMS.
• 2003 NCAR Distinguished Achievement Award.

1 Opinion

The latest 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report reaffirms in much stronger language that the climate is changing in ways that cannot be accounted for by natural variability and that "global warming" is happening. Global mean temperatures have risen and the last decade is the warmest on record. The major cause of warming in the last three decades is from human effects changing the composition of the atmosphere primarily through use of fossil fuels. While changes in particulate pollution mostly causes cooling, increases in long-lived greenhouse gases dominate and cause warming. The long lifetime of several greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide lasts for over a century) suggests that we can not stop the changes, although we can slow them down. Moreover, the slow response of the oceans to warming, means that we have not yet seen all of the climate change we are already committed to. Major climate changes are projected under all likely scenarios of the future and the rates of change are much greater than occur naturally, and so are likely to be disruptive. [1]

2 External links

• http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html - home page
• http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenberth-publish.html - publications