The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel onClimate Change (IPCC) has released a new report on anthropogenic climatechange.

The findings of the report include the following:

• The world's average surface temperature has increased by around 0.74°C over the past 100 years(1906 - 2005). A warming of about 0.2°C is projected for each of the next two decades.

• The best estimates for sea-level rise due to ocean expansion and glaciermelt by the end of the century (compared to 1989 - 1999 levels) have narrowedto 28 - 58 cm, versus 9 - 88 cm in the 2001 report, due to improvedunderstanding. However, larger values of up to 1 m by 2100 cannot be ruled outif ice sheets continue to melt as temperature rises.

• Sea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions.Large areas of the Arctic Ocean could lose year-round ice cover by the end ofthe 21st century if human emissions reach the higher end of current estimates.The extent of Arctic sea ice has already shrunk by about 2.7 per cent per decadesince 1978, with the summer minimum declining by about 7.1 per cent per decade.

• Snow cover has decreased in most regions, especially in spring. Themaximum extent of frozen ground in the winter/spring season decreased by about7 per cent in the Northern Hemisphere over the latter half of the 20th century.The average freezing date for rivers and lakes in the Northern Hemisphere overthe past 150 years has arrived later by some 5.8 days per century, while theaverage break-up date has arrived earlier by 6.5 days per century.

• It is "very likely" that precipitation will increase at highlatitudes and "likely" it will decrease over most subtropical landregions. The pattern of these changes is similar to what has been observedduring the 20th century.

“A UN report on climate change states that increasing temperatures are causingglacier melt, rising sea levels and loss of coastal land， which can be clearly seen from data provided”.