samadhisoft.com

BEIJING (AFP)—Skating has been banned on the melting ice of Beijing’s lakes, trees are blossoming early and people are shedding their heavy clothes as China experiences its warmest winter on record.

The temperature in the capital hit 16 degrees Celsius (60 degrees Fahrenheit) on Monday, far above the historical average of just below freezing for this time of year and the highest since records were first compiled in 1840.

The head of the Beijing Municipal Observatory, Guo Hu, said the record high was part of a consistent trend this winter, while state-run media reported similar phenomena across the country.

“In January and February, Beijing experienced its highest temperatures in 167 years,” Guo told AFP on Tuesday.

“Beijing has basically seen warmer winters from the late 1980s. This is due to the influence of global warming.”

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– Over the last few days, while I’ve been traveling, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has released its fourth report and you will probably have been living under a rock to have not heard about it. The report, which draws on the expertise of 2500 scientists, worldwide simply makes no bones about it. Global warming is real, humans are the cause of it and we haven’t much time to do something about it if we want to leave anything better than a disaster to our children.

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PARIS, Feb. 2 – In a grim and powerful assessment of the future of the planet, the leading international network of climate scientists has concluded for the first time that global warming is “unequivocal” and that human activity is the main driver, “very likely” causing most of the rise in temperatures since 1950.

They said the world was in for centuries of climbing temperatures, rising seas and shifting weather patterns — unavoidable results of the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere.

But their report, released here on Friday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said warming and its harmful consequences could be substantially blunted by prompt action.

While the report provided scant new evidence of a climate apocalypse now, and while it expressly avoided recommending courses of action, officials from the United Nations agencies that created the panel in 1988 said it spoke of the urgent need to limit looming and momentous risks.

“In our daily lives we all respond urgently to dangers that are much less likely than climate change to affect the future of our children,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, which administers the panel along with the World Meteorological Organization.

“Feb. 2 will be remembered as the date when uncertainty was removed as to whether humans had anything to do with climate change on this planet,” he went on. “The evidence is on the table.”

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research thx to John P, & Lisa G.

– The first two of the articles linked to, above, are from the NY Times and they insist that folks have an ID and a PW in order to read their stuff. You can get these for free just by signing up. However, recently, a friend of mine suggested the website bugmenot.com as an alternative to having to do these annoying sign ups. Check it out. Thx Bruce S. for the tip.

– You can also find a PDF based copy of the full IPCC report here: ➡