All Three IPCC Climate Change AR5 Technical Reports are Now Available

With the release this past week of the Mitigation volume, all three technical reports of the most recent IPCC climate change review, i.e., the 5th Assessment Report (AR5), are now available. A Synthesis Report will be released in October of 2014 that summarizes the main points of all three technical volumes.

The AR5 has been a major undertaking, with hundreds of scientists volunteering their time to reviewe tens of thousands of published papers and assessing their meaning, then writing it all up for others to read. Thousands of other scientists, interested parties, and even climate deniers reviewed the draft documents before they were finalized. Nearly 55,000 comments were received and addressed in the Physical Science Basis volume alone, with massive numbers of comments also being addressed in the other two technical reports.

The result is an undeniably comprehensive review of the state of the science. And the conclusion is clear - human activity is warming the planet, the consequences are extremely significant, and action must be taken now to minimize or reverse the inevitable ecological and economic impacts.

The reports and associated materials can all be downloaded and reviewed on the IPCC website. Previous posted have discussed some of the good and the bad about how IPCC is communicating the information.