The IPCC report on global warming is to be published this month: it has become increasingly pessimistic.  

• 
  12 of the past 13 years were the warmest since records began;
  
• 
  ocean temperatures have risen at least three kilometres beneath the surface;
  
• 
  glaciers, snow cover and permafrost have decreased in both hemispheres;
  
• 
  sea levels are rising at the rate of almost 2mm a year;
  
• 
  cold days, nights and frost have become rarer while hot days, hot nights and heatwaves have become more frequent.
  

So
far man has caused global temperatures to rise by 0.6C. The most likely
outcome of continuing rises in greenhouses gases will be to make the
planet a further 3C hotter by 2100, although the report acknowledges
that rises of 4.5C to 5C could be experienced.

Past
assessments by the IPCC have suggested such scenarios are 'likely' to
occur this century. Its latest report, based on sophisticated computer
models and more detailed observations of snow cover loss, sea level
rises and the spread of deserts, is far more robust and confident. Now
the panel writes of changes as 'extremely likely' and 'almost certain'.

And
in a specific rebuff to sceptics who still argue natural variation in
the Sun's output is the real cause of climate change, the panel says
mankind's industrial emissions have had five times more effect on the
climate than any fluctuations in solar radiation.

The panel does not however believe that the Gulf Stream will stop anytime in the next 100 years.

The
Dutch have clung on to the estimate that sea levels will rise by 43 cm,
if not less.  They believe that it will take at least a 1.5m rise to
cause serious damage to the Netherlands.