Weather is an inexhaustible source of surprises for us, but now sudden changes in it serve as a cause of concern, for many experts in the field regard them as a manifestation of the global climate change due to the steadily growing hothouse effect as a result of man's activity. And in this situation researchers deem it necessary to state their position. At the height of the unusually high temperatures in Moscow in January 2007, Academician Georgy Golitsin, director of the RAS Atmosphere Physics Institute, Academician Yuri Israel, director of the RAS Global Climate and Ecology Institute of Rosgidromet (the Hydro-Meteorological Service of Russia), Academician Vladimir Kotlyakov, director of the RAS Institute of Geography, and Vladimir Katsov, Dr. Sc. (Phys. and Math.), department manager of the Head Geophysical Observatory named after A. I. Voyevkov of Rosgidromet, met with Yuri Medvedev, a Rossiiskaya Gazeta correspondent, in order to offer most objective answers to questions of public concern. стр. 103 Georgy Golitsin has recalled that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, set up under the UN auspices in 1988, issues detailed reports on all climate aspects once in 5 - 6 years and stressed that the materials reflect the official viewpoint with regard to global climate change. Yuri Israel, deputy chairman of the said group, has pointed out that, in his colleagues' opinion, the global temperature will rise by 1.9 - 4.5°C, or by 2 - 2.5°C on a average for hundred years, so there are no grounds to expect global cataclysms. However, other specialists believe that the global temperature will rise by 1°C at the most. Even worse, their most irreconcilable opponents insist that the critical point has been passed, that the Gulf Stream will change its route, with the Scandinavian Peninsula and North America becoming ice-clad and the Arctic and Antarctic glaciers turning into water-in a word, humankind is certainly doomed. Meanwhile, in ... Read more