Experts from two of the world's leading academic institutions have joined forces to explain the "clear evidence" of human-caused climate change.
Britain's Royal Society and its American counterpart, the US National Academy of Sciences, published the report for policymakers, teachers and ordinary citizens in an attempt to dispel global warming myths.
Climate Change: Evidence and Causes spells out which aspects of climate change are well understood and which are still uncertain and need further research.
It maintains there is unequivocal evidence that soaring levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere are chiefly the result of burning fossil fuels.
Carbon dioxide is now at its highest level for at least 800,000 years, and records dating back to the mid-19th century show a clear long-term warming trend.
One of the main clues to the origin of the CO2 is its atomic fingerprint, say the scientists. Measurements of different isotopes - or atomic "strains" - of carbon show that most of the increase is human-generated.
On the other hand, there is much less certainty about the extent to which sea levels are likely to rise, and what effect increasing acidity of the oceans will have on marine life.
"Our aim with this new resource is to provide people with easy access to the latest scientific evidence on climate change, including where scientists agree and where uncertainty still remains," said Royal Society president Sir Paul Nurse.
"We have enough evidence to warrant action being taken on climate change; it is now time for the public debate to move forward to discuss what we can do to limit the impact on our lives and those of future generations."
American colleague Professor Ralph J Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, said: "As two of the world's leading scientific bodies, we feel a responsibility to evaluate and explain what is known about climate change, at least the physical side of it, to concerned citizens, educators, decision makers and leaders, and to advance public dialogue about how to respond to the threats of climate change."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article