(p. D2) . . . most of the horror-movie scenarios are looking
less and less plausible. Climate change will probably occur not
with a bang but with a long, slow whimper, as you can see in the
new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The report concludes that it's ''very likely'' that humans are
now the main factor warming the climate. But even as the panel's
scientists are becoming surer of the problem, and warning of
grim consequences this century and beyond, they're eschewing
crowd-thrilling catastrophes. Since the last I.P.C.C. report,
six years ago, they haven't raised the estimates of future
temperatures and sea levels. While Mr. Gore's movie shows
coastlines flooded by a 20-foot rise in sea level, the report's
projections for the rise this century range from 7 inches to 23
inches. The panel says Greenland's ice sheet will shrink and
might eventually disappear, but the process could take
''millennia.'' The Antarctic ice sheet is projected to grow, not
shrink, because of increased snow