When Worlds Collide #85: Climate Change – Big picture and small pixels

Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today Sunday broadsheet newspaper on 29 September 2013

The UN climate panel (IPCC) reconfirms that accelerated climate change is happening without any doubt.

In its latest assessment report, released in Stockholm this week, the global scientific body says the main cause is human actions that emit planet warming (greenhouse) gases into the atmosphere.

The authoritative report, distilling the work of hundreds of climate researchers, projects global temperatures to rise by between 0.3 and 4.8 degrees Celsius by late this century. (The low end can only be maintained if governments sharply cut emissions.)

As temperatures rise, polar ice and glaciers melt. Due to this and the thermal expansion of water in warmer climes, world sea levels could rise by between 26 and 82 cm (10 to 32 inches) by or before 2100.

Meanwhile, the world’s oceans have acidified rapidly in recent…