A key report summarising the latest authoritative scientific information on climate change will be released by a UN-appointed panel of experts on Monday.
With increasingly sophisticated technology allowing scientists to measure climate change and predict its future path, the report is expected to make for harrowing reading, the AFP reported.
It will project global temperature changes until the end of the century under different emissions scenarios.
Based almost entirely on published research, it could forecast — even under optimistic scenarios — a temporary “overshoot” of the 1.5C target of the Paris Agreement, and upwardly revised estimates for long-term sea-level rise.
It is also expected to reflect huge progress in so-called attribution science, which allows experts to link individual extreme weather events directly to man-made climate change.
The report comes less than three months ahead of the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, which are seen as vital for humanity’s chance of limiting the worst impacts of global warming.