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Last revised 5 February 2007 at 1pm AEDT

Media Briefings: IPCC Working Group 1 Report on the Science of Climate Change

NOTE: Melbourne and Adelaide Audio files now available.

Some of the most important scientific data on global climate change has become available and it may be a huge wake-up call for the planet.

The first in a series of ground-breaking documents from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was released in Paris on Friday 2 February. The AusSMC is providing opportunities for the media to find out what’s in store for the Australian climate and to interview some of the Lead Authors and other climate change scientists.

Two media briefings were held, the first in Melbourne on Sat 3 Feb and the second in Adelaide on Mon 5 Feb to coincide with the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS) conference. Mp3 audio files for some of the speakers are now available below

Details of the IPCC paper: The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) consists of contributions from three working groups which will be released as a series of documents throughout 2007. The first to be released is a summary of the first volume, 'Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis'. It details the changes in climate that we have seen so far and describes our current understanding of what natural or human activity has caused them. It builds on past research and uses data gathered over the last six years to estimate how our climate may change in the future. Click here to download the Summary for Policymakers (pdf).

For a useful background document click here.

A Rapid Roundup of comments from climate experts is also available online.

MELBOURNE BRIEFING - Sat 3 Feb 07

Speakers were:
Dr Geoff Love - Bio Note Director of Meteorology at the Bureau of Meteorology, IPCC Working Group II Vice-chair, and former Secretary of the IPCC. LISTEN TO GEOFF LOVE (Mp3)
Dr Mike Coughlan - Bio Note and Abstract Head of the Bureau of Meteorology’s National Climate Centre, and a review editor for the chapter on Australia and New Zealand, which forms part of the IPCC Working Group II Report to be released in early April.
Dr Rob Colman – Bio Note and Abstract Senior Professional Officert, Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre. Lead Author, Chapter 8 – Climate Models and their evaluation. LISTEN TO ROB COLMAN (Mp3)
Dr Penny Whetton – Bio Note and Abstract Senior Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO, Stream Leader, Climate Impacts and Risk. Lead Author Chapter 11 – Regional climate change projections. LISTEN TO PENNY WHETTON (Mp3)

ADELAIDE BRIEFING - Mon 5 Feb 07

Speakers were:
Dr Kevin Walsh – Bio Note Professorial Fellow, School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, former head of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and Australian Bureau of Meteorology
Professor Neville Nicholls – Bio Note Professorial Fellow in the School of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University. Lead Author, Chapter 9 - Understanding and attributing climate change. LISTEN TO NEVILLE NICHOLLS (Mp3)
Dr David Jones - Bio Note and Abstract Head of Climate Analysis, National Climate Centre, Bureau of Meteorology LISTEN TO DAVID JONES (Mp3)

LISTEN TO ADELAIDE DISCUSSION (27 min - >6Mb)

Footnote: Read the thoughts of Lead Author Professor Neville Nicholls writing in Paris in the leadup to the release of the AR4 Report in our new Science Blog section.

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