"Technical Paper on Climate Change and Water" released by the IPCC

Prof. Hong Yan said on the 10^th of April: "This paper emphasizes the link between global warming and large-scale changes in the hydrological cycle, including changing precipitation patterns, intensities and extremes, the reduction of snow cover over continents and ice cover over the oceans, the melting of continental ice, and changes in soil moisture and run-off including the occurrence and intensity of droughts".

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific body tasked to evaluate the risk of climate change caused by human activity. The panel was established in 1988 by two branches of the United Nations, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The IPCC does not carry out research, nor does it monitor climate or related phenomena. A main activity of the IPCC is publishing special reports on topics relevant to the implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international treaty that acknowledges the possibility of harmful climate change; implementation of the UNFCCC led eventually to the Kyoto Protocol.

The IPCC carries out its work through three Working Groups and a Task Force:

• Working Group I assesses the scientific aspects of the climate system and climate change.
• Working Group II assesses the vulnerability of socio-economic and natural systems to climate change, negative and positive consequences of climate change, and options for adapting to it.
• Working Group III assesses options for limiting greenhouse gas emissions and otherwise mitigating climate change.
• The Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories is responsible for the IPCC National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme.

The chairman of IPCC is Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, who has been awarded (as representative of the IPCC) of the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change". The ceremony was held last November and he was awarded jointly with former Vice President of the United States Al Gore.