theory needing investigation: a tentative explanation for a phenomenon, used as a basis for further investigation
The hypothesis of the big bang is one way to explain the beginning of the universe.

a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena

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scientific principle to explain phenomena: a set of facts, propositions, or principles analyzed in their relation to one another and used, especially in science, to explain phenomena

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A chilling conclusion on global warming

The United Nations is poised to release a report on climate change so grim and so vast in scope that scientists involved in the six-year study say it will end the debate on global warming.

The report will say that global warming caused by human activity is no longer a theory. It is a fact.

...

[T]he report will ask and answer four basic questions:

• Can humans affect the climate system and, if so, what changes have been observed? The report will say that natural factors alone can no longer explain the changes seen in the second half of the 20th century, citing a new physical understanding of the climate system.
  
  
• How sure are we that humans are responsible for climate change? The report will say that it is a virtual certainty that humans have caused the change, meaning that the scientists are "99 percent" certain.
  
  
• How different will the climate be in the future? The climate, its chemical mix now substantially altered by higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, will continue to warm. Ice sheets will continue to melt, making sea levels rise.
  
  
• How has science changed our understanding of global warming since international efforts were launched in 1990? All the evidence has come together, scientists say, to form an internally consistent story.
  
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Melting ice means global warming report all wet, say some experts who warn it'll be even worse

Later this week in Paris, climate scientists will issue a dire forecast for the planet that warns of slowly rising sea levels and higher temperatures.

But that may be the sugarcoated version.

Early and changeable drafts of their upcoming authoritative report on climate change foresee smaller sea level rises than were projected in 2001 in the last report. Many top U.S. scientists reject these rosier numbers. Those calculations don't include the recent, and dramatic, melt-off of big ice sheets in two crucial locations:

They "don't take into account the gorillas — Greenland and Antarctica," said Ohio State University earth sciences professor Lonnie Thompson, a polar ice specialist. "I think there are unpleasant surprises as we move into the 21st century."

Michael MacCracken, who until 2001 coordinated the official U.S. government reviews of the international climate report on global warming, has fired off a letter of protest over the omission.

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Last warning: 10 years to save world

Scientists say rising greenhouses gases will make climate change unstoppable in a decade

THE world has just 10 years to reverse surging greenhouse gas emissions or risk runaway climate change that could make many parts of the planet uninhabitable.

The stark warning comes from scientists who are working on the final draft of a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Originally posted by Regenmacher

Originally posted by loam
Stay tuned... and hope for the best. It looks like we are going to need it.

Thanks Loam. I suspect Western leaders knew this all along considering the recent wars and strategic re-positioning of military forces is more in lines with hoarding and self-preservation. I suspect their solution will be much of the same in creating more war to remove the threat of large poverty stricken regions, secure resources and crush uprisings that will be a result of climate change.

Key findings of the IPCC's fourth assessment report

* Global temperatures continue to rise with 11 of the 12 warmest years since 1850 occurring since 1995. Computer models suggest a further rise of about 3C by 2100, with a 6C rise a distant possibility
* It is virtually certain (there is more than a 99 per cent probability) that carbon dioxide levels and global warming is far above the range of natural variability over the past 650,000 years
* It is virtually certain that human activity has played the dominant role in causing the increase of greenhouse gases over the past 250 years
* Man-made emissions of atmospheric aerosol pollutants have tended to counteract global warming, which otherwise would have been significantly worse
* The net effect of human activities over the past 250 years has very likely exerted a warming influence on the climate
* It is likely that human activity is also responsible for other observed changes to the Earth's climate system, such as ocean warming and the melting of the Arctic sea ice
* Sea levels will continue to rise in the 21st Century because of the thermal expansion of the oceans and loss of land ice
* The projected warming of the climate due to increases in carbon dioxide during the 21st Century is likely to cause the total melting of the Greenland ice sheet during the next 1,000 years, according to some computer forecasting models
* The warm Gulf Stream of the North Atlantic is likely to slow down during the 21st Century because of global warming and the melting of the freshwater locked up in the Greenland ice sheet. But no models predict the collapse of that warm current by 2100.

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