- alarming global warming effects

Report issued by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC):

• increasing rate in global sea level rise from 1.8mm a year to 3.1mm a year from 1961 to 1993;
• projected sea level rise at end of the 21st Century will be 18-59cm;
• by 2020 between 75mil and 250mil people in Africa are projected to be exposed to increase water stress;
• eleven of the last 12 years (1995-2006) rank among the 12 warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature (since 1850);
• in the past 100 years there has been a rise of 0.74ºC in temperature;
• arctic sea ice extent has shrunk by 2.7% per decade,with larger decreases in summer of 7.4% per decade;
• mountain glaciers and snow cover on average have declined in both hemispheres and
  
• for the next 2 decades a warming of about 0.2ºC per decade is projected.

Key Problems in Asia

• by 2050 freshwater availability particularly in large river basins is projected to decrease;
• coastal areas especially heavily populated mega-delta regions will be at greatest risk due to increased flooding from the sea and rivers and
• endemic morbidity and mortality due to diarhoea disease primarily associated with floods and droughts are expected to rise due to projected changes in the hydrological cycle.