IPCC Fourth Assessment Report
Overview
 
Climate Change 2007, the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...

), is the fourth in a series of reports intended to assess scientific, technical and socio-economic information concerning climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...

, its potential effects, and options for adaptation and mitigation. The report is the largest and most detailed summary of the climate change situation ever undertaken, produced by thousands of authors, editors, and reviewer from dozens of countries, citing over 6,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies.
It supersedes the Third Assessment Report
IPCC Third Assessment Report
The IPCC Third Assessment Report, Climate Change 2001, is an assessment of available scientific and socio-economic information on climate change by the IPCC. The IPCC was established in 1988 by the United Nations Environment Programme and the UN's World Meteorological Organization ".....

 (2001), and will in turn be superseded by the Fifth Assessment Report
IPCC Fifth Assessment Report
The Fifth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , will be the fifth in a series of such reports...

 (expected in 2014).
 
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