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Cloud formation, sea level rises and extreme weather events are among areas set to get more attention in the next U.N. report on global warming due in 2014, the head of the Nobel Peace Prize winning panel said on Friday. Skip related content

Rajendra Pachauri also said the panel did not plan to issue more frequent reports as suggested by some governments, reckoning that several years were needed to come up with robust findings. The last series of reports was in 2007.

“We would certainly have much more greater detail,” in the next reports, Pachauri told Reuters in a telephone interview from Venice, where leading scientists have been meeting from July 13-17 to work on an outline to be approved later this year.

“In the case of clouds we will certainly provide much greater emphasis in this report — clouds, aerosols, black carbon. These are issues that we will certainly cover in much greater detail,” he said.

The 2007 report pointed to cloud formation as a big uncertainty in climate change. Warmer air can absorb more moisture and so lead to more clouds in some regions — the white tops can reflect heat back into space and offset any warming.

In an opposite effect, black carbon — or soot from sources such as factories or forest fires — can blanket ice and snow with a heat-absorbent dark layer and so accelerate a thaw.

“Sea level rise is another issue that…will get much greater in-depth attention,” he said.

Yahoo/Reuters News: ‘Clouds, seas to be targeted by U.N. climate report’

July 20th, 2009 | Tags: IPCC | Category: News | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL