Acknowledgments

This assessment has benefited greatly from the very high degree of co-operation that exists within the international climate science community and its coordination by the World Meteorological Organization World Climate Research Program (WCRP) and the International Geosphere Biosphere Program (IGBP). In particular we wish to acknowledge the enormous commitment by the individuals and agencies of 14 climate modelling groups from around the world, as well as the archiving and distribution of an unprecedented amount (over 30 Terabytes) of climate model output by the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI). This has enabled a more detailed comparison among current climate models and a more comprehensive assessment of the potential nature of long term climate change than ever before.

We must emphasise that this report has been entirely dependent on the expertise, hard work, and commitment to excellence shown throughout by our Coordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors with important help by many Contributing Authors. In addition we would like to express our sincere appreciation of the work carried out by the expert reviewers and acknowledge the value of the very large number of constructive comments received. Our Review Editors have similarly played a critical role in assisting the authors to deal with these comments.

The Working Group I Bureau, Kansri Boonpragob, Filippo Giorgi, Bubu Jallow, Jean Jouzel, Maria Martelo and David Wratt have played the role of an editorial board in assisting with the selection of authors and with guiding the initial outline of the report. They have provided constructive support to the Working Group Co-Chairs throughout for which we are very grateful.

Our sincere thanks go to the hosts and organizers of the four lead author meetings that were necessary for the preparation of the report and we gratefully acknowledge the support received from governments and agencies in Italy, China, New Zealand and Norway. The final Working Group I approval session was made possible by Mr Marc Gillet through the generosity of the government of France and the session was greatly facilitated by Francis Hayes, the WMO Conference Officer.

It is a pleasure to acknowledge the tireless work of the staff of the Working Group I Technical Support Unit, Melinda Marquis, Kristen Averyt, Melinda Tignor, Roy Miller, Tahl Kestin and Scott Longmore, who were ably assisted by Zhenlin Chen, Barbara Keppler, MaryAnn Pykkonen, Kyle Terran, Lelani Arris, and Marilyn Anderson. Graphics support and layout by Michael Shibao and Paula Megenhardt is gratefully appreciated. We thank Reto Stockli for kindly providing images of the Earth from space for the cover of this report. Assistance in helping the Co-Chairs to organize and edit the Frequently Asked Questions by David Wratt, David Fahey, and Susan Joy Hassol, is also appreciated. We should also like to thank Renate Christ, Secretary of the IPCC, and Secretariat staff Jian Liu, Rudie Bourgeois, Annie Courtin and Joelle Fernandez who provided logistical support for government liaison and travel of experts from developing countries and transitional economy countries.