GLOBAL warming is accelerating faster than climate modellers predicted. Back
in 1995, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, predicted that global
temperatures would rise between 1 °C and 3.5 °C during the 21st century
if present trends continued. But things have got hotter, with the mercury
climbing to new highs.
Thomas Karl, director of the National Climate Data Center at the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US, calculates that the rate of
warming is already equivalent to a 3 °C increase per century (
Geophysical Research Letters, vol 27, p 719). “This means that over the
past two…
