The first two Working Group (WG) reports of the sixth assessment (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is now available for public view. Two more reports – the third working group (WGIII) and final synthesis report (SYR) – are due later this year.
IPCC and working groups
IPCC, formed in 1988 by World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is the United Nations (UN) body for assessing the science related to climate change. The body has done an honourable job for more than 30 years in providing policymakers with scientific information about climate change. While IPCC does not conduct its research, it gathers input from thousands of scientists and mathematicians working in this field globally and facilitates expert review.
It has three working groups and a task force. WGI deals with the science of climate change, WGII its impact and the third group, WGIII, concerns the mitigation plans.
Assessment cycles
The current assessment cycle, the sixth, started from where the fifth had ended (2013-14) and has its first report (AR6-WGI) released in 2021.
WGI: physical science basis of climate change
Through its 12 chapters spread over 4000 pages, the report summarises the current state of knowledge about climate information and human-induced climate change. We’ll go through some of its findings in the next post.
