Here's a lede that should cheer you up: "The world's top climate scientists have cut their worst-case forecast for global warming over the next 100 years." That's from The Australian News article "Science tempers fears on climate change," which was published a couple of days ago. It refers to early draft material from a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due February 2007. Probably best to hold the applause and keep thinking about mitigation solutions, though; RealClimate says "the writer confuses a tightening of the estimate of climate sensitivity to 2xCO2 (as discussed here) with projections of climate change in 2100. These projections obviously depend on the uncertainties in the scenarios of future technology, economic progress and population (etc.) plus uncertainties in feedbacks related to the carbon or methane cycles. Unfortunately these have not been reduced since the last assessment report (and in some cases have actually increased)." As RealClimate says, that news services publish reportage based on leaks of potentially inaccurate draft material is troubling.

The Australian is known for following the conservative line and denying climate change - John Quiggin discusses the article you mention.

Posted by: Pat Allan on September 4, 2006 8:22 PM

Thanks for that link. As RealClimate says, the worse problem is that Reuters and UPI picked up the story and distributed it globally.

Posted by: Jon Lebkowsky on September 4, 2006 10:32 PM