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GLOBAL WARMING In 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international body established by the United Nations to provide scientific advise to global policy makers regarding such issues as the buildup of greenhouse gases, evidence and attribution of climate change, and predictions of global climate scenarios over the next century, issued its inagural report. That report concluded that human activity had been increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to the highest levels in recorded history. According to the IPCC, atmospheric carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas, had increased from pre-industrial levels of about 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv) to a 1990 level of 370 ppmv, far greater than the concentrations found by scientists for any prior historical period. The report further concluded that global surface temperatures had increased about 0.5 degrees C since the late 19th century (within a range of 0.3 and 0.6 degrees C). The IPCC used this and other data gathered from fossil records, ice core drillings, tree ring analyses, marine sediment cores and the like to develop global weather models designed to account for past global temperature changes and predic