quote:

---

If emissions of heat-trapping gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere at the current rate, there may be many centuries of warming and a near-total loss of Arctic tundra, according to a new climate study.

Over all, the world would experience profound transformations, some potentially beneficial but many disruptive, and all at a pace rarely seen in nature, said the authors of the study, being published today in The Journal of Climate.

"The question is no longer whether we will need to address this problem, but when we will need to address the problem," said Kenneth Caldeira, an author of the study and a climate expert at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, based at Stanford University.

"We can either address it now, before we severely and irreversibly damage our climate, or we can wait until irreversible damage manifests itself strongly," Dr. Caldeira said. "If all we do is try to adapt, things will get worse and worse."

The paper's lead author, Bala Govindasamy of the Energy Department's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said it might take 20 or 30 years before the scope of the human-caused changes becomes evident, but from then on there is likely to be no debate.

---

quote:

---

"We are experiencing the reality of climate change," Prakhova, who leads a group representing indigenous people in Russia and the Nordic nations, said on a snow-free day in Harstad, a Norwegian Arctic port of about 15,000 people.

Evidence that humans are pushing up global temperatures is growing ever stronger, ranging from a shrinking of ice in the Arctic to a warming of the Indian Ocean, many experts say.

The scientific panel that advises the United Nations looks likely to issue sterner warnings in its next report in 2007 that emissions of heat-trapping gases from power plants, factories and cars are disrupting the climate, they say.

And mounting conviction among experts may add pressure on governments, who next meet for climate talks in Montreal, Canada, from November 28 to December 9, to do more about a problem that could cost trillions of dollars to fix in coming decades.

"There is stronger and stronger evidence that there is an anthropogenic (human) element affecting the climate," said Paal Prestrud, head of the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.

---

quote:

---

In September, polar ice contracted to its smallest size in at least a century, according to measurements by space agency NASA and the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Centre.

Around Harstad, less bone-chilling winters have helped some pests to thrive, like beetles and worms that destroy Arctic forests. In northern Russia, frogs have been spotted more often on the tundra and some birds are not even bothering to migrate.

The idea that humans are to blame is growing: a survey this year by scientists at the U.S. Scripps Institution of Oceanography showing a warming of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans over recent decades has been among the strongest evidence that human activities are responsible.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), of scientists who advise the United Nations, concluded in its last report in 2001 that: "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities".

Most research since 2001 has downgraded theories that swings in the power of the sun, volcanic dust or warmth from cities are mainly to blame for rising temperatures, rather than emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels.

"Based on new research, which is already available in the journals, we can say that there is stronger evidence about the human influence" on the climate, said Albert Klein Tank of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute. He is among scientists working on the next IPCC report, due in 2007.

---

quote:

---

Thousands of protesters took to the streets in cities worldwide Saturday to demand urgent action on global warming as delegates continued their work at an international climate change conference to review and update the Kyoto Protocol.

---

quote:

---

Organizers said 10,000 people marched through London, passing Prime Minister Tony Blair's home on Downing Street, where they delivered a letter demanding the government reaffirm its commitment to Kyoto with legally binding targets on emissions reductions.

Chanting and blowing whistles, the marchers denounced Blair and Bush for their perceived environmental failings. Some held banners depicting Bush as "Wanted -- for crimes against the planet" and advising "Ditch Blair, not Kyoto."

---

quote:

---

The people of the Arctic filed a landmark human rights complaint against the United States, blaming the world's No. 1 carbon polluter for stoking the global warming that is destroying their habitat. The Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), representing native people in the vast, sparsely-populated region girdling the Earth's far north, said they had petitioned an inter-American panel to seek relief for Canadian and US Inuit.




"For Inuit, warming is likely to disrupt or even destroy their hunting and food-sharing culture as reduced sea ice causes the animals on which they depend to decline, become less accessible, and possibly become extinct," said Robert Corell, who spearheaded an Arctic climate impact assessment.

More than 150,000 Inuit, formerly called eskimos, are spread throughout the vast frozen northern territories of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Scandinavia and Russia.

These regions have experienced the most rapid and severe climate change on earth, according to Corell's assessment, which was prepared over four years by more than 300 scientists from 15 countries and six indigenous organizations.

Global warming has caused the northern ice cover to retreat, making it more dangerous for the Inuit to hunt food animals such as polar bears, seals and caribou, their investigation found.

These animals also face decline or extinction, unable to adapt to warmer temperatures as their own access to food sources, breeding grounds and migration routes are altered.

And, rising sea levels and flooding threaten coastal Inuit communities.

---

quote:

---

Scientists: As Arctic Ice Cap Melts, Polar Bears Are Drowning It may be the latest evidence of global warming: Polar bears are drowning. Scientists for the first time have documented multiple deaths of polar bears off Alaska, where they likely drowned after swimming long distances in the ocean amid the melting of the Arctic ice shelf. The bears spend most of their time hunting and raising their young on ice floes.

---

quote:

---

World Is At Its hottest Since Pre-History Scientists Say The world is now hotter than at any stage since prehistoric times, a top climatologist announced last week. His startling conclusion comes as Nasa reported that 2005 has been the hottest year ever recorded. Dr Michael Coughlan, head of the National Climate Centre at the Australian Government's Bureau of Meteorology, said: "One probably has to go back into prehistoric times - and way back in them - to be seeing these sorts of temperatures."

---