The world's leading climate scientists will soon report that global warming could cause the Earth's temperature to rise to levels far higher than previously predicted. Under the auspices of the United Nations' forthcoming and most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, scientists will report they:
"are now unable to place a reliable upper limit on how quickly the atmosphere will warm as carbon dioxide levels increase. The report draws together research over the past five years and will be presented to national governments in April and made public next year. It raises the possibility of the Earth's temperature rising well above the ceiling quoted in earlier accounts... Such an outcome would have severe consequences, such as the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet and disruption of the Gulf Stream ocean current... The scientific agenda has moved from improving the predictions to thinking about what are the chances of something awful happening."
The new IPCC report will underpin international talks on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions when the first phase of the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012.