Panel Accepts Fossil Fuel Tie to Global Heat

A U.N. scientific panel on climate change says it is now convinced that global temperatures have warmed over the last century because of human activity, a newspaper reports today.

The experts say new computer studies have given them confidence in data that suggests the cause of the global temperature rise of 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1900, the New York Times said.

The statement, in a draft summary of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, marks a shift in the views of top climatologists, who previously said they could not tell whether global warming was caused by the burning of fossil fuels or natural climatic variations.

The panel’s summary says that “a pattern of climatic response to human activities is identifiable.”

Scientific data now proves that the burning of wood, oil and coal, which releases carbon monoxide into the air, is at least partly responsible for the so-called greenhouse effect, or warming of the earth’s atmosphere, said Dr. Tom M.L. Wigley, one of the report’s authors.