Global Warming Likely to Cause Heavy Rains, Higher Sea Levels.

Present sea levels will rise causing an increase in flooding, maximum temperatures will climb and intense precipitation events are more likely during the 21st century, according to two recent scientific studies.

The scientific journal Nature recently published a study by a team of international scientists that predicted global warming would cause ice caps to melt and increase the incidence of flooding. Using computer models, the scientists have accumulated proof about the continued acceleration of the sea level. The scientists discovered that as the Antarctic melts, sea levels will increase in the northern hemisphere, and as the Greenland ice sheet melts, it will generate higher sea levels in the southern hemisphere.

The Third Assessment Report of Working Group I of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a culmination of scientific studies involving an international group of scientists who have been studying global warming since 1990. The panel reports what has been suspected for years--that global surface temperature, the average of near surface air temperature over land and sea surface temperature has increased in the last 100 years. This warming is causing snow cover and ice to decrease and mountain glaciers to retreat, which are leading to a rise in the global sea level.

The panel projects that nearly all land areas will warm more rapidly than the global average, particularly those in northern high latitudes. Potential weather-related disasters predicted from the report include droughts in Latin and South America and the sinking of islands in the Pacific and Caribbean as sea levels rise. The report blames the increased use of fossil fuels as one of the main reasons for global warming.

A copy of the report, "Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis," is available at www.ipcc.ch.