Climate panel: warming ‘extremely likely’ man-made

Activists gather outside the the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change dressed as scientists in lab coats on one side of a giant 12 meter seesaw to give a visual image of the IPCC report’s key finding that there is 95% scientific certainty that humans cause climate change on September 27, 2013 in Stockholm. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change publishes the first volume of its Fifth Assessment Report, dealing with the scientific evidence for global warming. AFP

STOCKHOLM — Scientists can now say with extreme confidence that human activity is the dominant cause of the global warming observed since the 1950s, a new report by an international scientific group said Friday.

Calling man-made warming “extremely likely,” the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used the strongest words yet on the issue as it adopted its assessment on the state of the climate system.

In its previous assessment, in 2007, the U.N.-sponsored panel said it was “very likely” that global warming was man-made.

It now says the evidence has grown thanks to more and better observations, a clearer understanding of the climate system and improved models to analyze the impact of rising temperatures.

“Our assessment of the science finds that the atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amount of snow and ice has diminished, the global mean sea level has risen and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased,” said Qin Dahe, co-chair of the working group that wrote the report.

The full 2,000-page report isn’t going to be released until Monday, but a summary for policymakers with the key findings was published Friday. It contained few surprises as many of the findings had been leaked in advance.