Trying to predict the world’s climate a century from now is an inexact science. The most recent assessment by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that global temperatures could rise between 2 and 11.5 degrees F during the 21st century, depending on an array of variables. Skeptics of global warming use that kind of imprecision to support a wait-and-see approach: since scientists may be overestimating the impact of global warming, perhaps policy makers ought to delay carbon cuts or other action until the science catches up. Recently, researchers had a chance to look back at the IPCC’s early predictions, and it turns out that the panel had indeed made some mistakes - it had significantly underestimated the rate of increase in global carbon emissions. Scientists at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Feb. 14 reported that worldwide CO2 emission rates had risen more precipitously between 2000 and 2008 than the IPCC’s worst-case scenario, thanks largely to an unexpected increase in coal-burning in developing countries like China. (See the top 10 green ideas of 2008.) ‘We are basically looking now at a future climate that’s beyond anything we’ve considered […]