Weather service warns climate change is real
The German Weather Service (DWD) said on Tuesday Germany faced serious threats from climate change and warned policy makers from abandoning efforts to combat global warming.
“The history of climate change does not need to be rewritten,” DWD president Wolfgang Kusch said during the organisation’s annual climate conference in Berlin. “Despite its changeable journey, the climate train has a clear destination. It’s going uphill.”
Despite a brutally cold winter, DWD figures showed that the average 2009 temperature of 9.2 degrees Celsius was the 13th warmest since 1881 and 0.9 degrees above the average for the reference period of 1961-1990.
While these figures didn’t break any records, a few years without record-high temperatures do not signal an end to the trend, Kusch said.
“Therefore we must, as before, put all effort into the reduction of greenhouse gasses and even today orient ourselves to the consequences of climate change,” he added.
Kusch also referred to recent criticism about methods by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), saying that while some complaints may be legitimate, mistakes made at the organisation do not call collective scientific data into question.
“Every mistake is one too many and must be corrected,” Kusch said. “But the results of the last IPCC report are still valid – we must act!”
In this spirit, the DWD announced it would increase research efforts in the field at its new Climate Data Centre (CDC). It also planned to add a new “Climate Atlas,” which helps users project climate scenarios for the past, present and future.
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“The history of climate change does not need to be rewritten,” DWD president Wolfgang Kusch said during the organisation’s annual climate conference in Berlin. “Despite its changeable journey, the climate train has a clear destination. It’s going uphill.”
Despite a brutally cold winter, DWD figures showed that the average 2009 temperature of 9.2 degrees Celsius was the 13th warmest since 1881 and 0.9 degrees above the average for the reference period of 1961-1990.
While these figures didn’t break any records, a few years without record-high temperatures do not signal an end to the trend, Kusch said.
“Therefore we must, as before, put all effort into the reduction of greenhouse gasses and even today orient ourselves to the consequences of climate change,” he added.
Kusch also referred to recent criticism about methods by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), saying that while some complaints may be legitimate, mistakes made at the organisation do not call collective scientific data into question.
“Every mistake is one too many and must be corrected,” Kusch said. “But the results of the last IPCC report are still valid – we must act!”
In this spirit, the DWD announced it would increase research efforts in the field at its new Climate Data Centre (CDC). It also planned to add a new “Climate Atlas,” which helps users project climate scenarios for the past, present and future.
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