Copenhagen Congress on latest climate science

BBC

Matt McGrath

More bad news on climate change is expected as more than 2,000 climate scientists gather in Copenhagen.

They will be trying to pull together the latest research on global warming ahead of political negotiations later in the year.

The scientists are concerned that the 2007 reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are already out of date.

Their data suggests greater rises in sea levels this century.

For the scientists gathering in the Danish capital, this meeting is about removing as much wriggle room as possible from the political negotiations on a new global climate treaty taking place in December.

While the IPCC reports of 2007 were praised for their recognition of the causes of global warming, the slow, consensus-based nature of the process, meant more recent data was not included.

Greater clarity

But this meeting is happening outside the IPCC, so it will have the very latest estimates, and the scientists will not need to agree every word with the political masters.

This unfettered atmosphere is likely to produce greater clarity about the scale of some very worrying trends, especially sea level rise.

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