The next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecasts
won't be released until late 2013. But insiders say that thanks
to faster computers and better models, the report will offer
more precise predictions and adjust anticipated changes in sea
levels and precipitation. The world's climate forecasting
specialists will soon be releasing much-anticipated new
predictions concerning a number of extremely weighty questions:
How warm will the climate really get? Will sea levels continue
to rise? Where will it rain more, and where less? The United
Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) won't
announce its latest round of forecasts until the end of next
year, but confidential draft versions are already circulating
within scientific circles. The field of climate research has
advanced since the IPCC's last assessment report, released in
2007, as computers have grown faster and models more complex. In
fact, these developments make what insiders say the IPCC's
message will be all the more astonishing