U.N. Global Warming Science Talks Begin Today

The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases meets today in Spain to begin drafting a synthesis report that represents the best knowledge about the world's climate, what causes global warming, what it means for wildlife and humanity, and what we can do about it.

The landmark project is the fourth report since the United Nations recognized the need for clear statements about the science of climate change. The authoritative analysis will condense voluminous studies into a single document that includes pertinent information for policy makers. They meet in Bali next month to draft a world agreement for greenhouse gas reductions that will follow the Kyoto Protocol's expiration in 2012.

The report, however, won't include the most recent studies, such as those documenting the most dramatic retreat of ice in the Arctic ever recorded, shifts in the Greenland ice sheet, new measures of fast-increasing carbon dioxide emissions from China, or results indicating that the oceans are absorbing less carbon dioxide than they had in the past.

This isn't a new concern. To summarize years of science, and articulate a consensus, requires the IPCC to ignore, for the time being, some of the latest results. The problem is that some of those results point to a world that is reacting much faster than anticipated by the dated consensus view.

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