Climate scientists have opened a four-day conference in Paris to finalize a long-awaited report on global climate change.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is set to issue the report Friday after six years of work.
Early drafts warned of rising sea levels and extreme weather events in the coming decades. The document also is said to warn that global temperatures could rise as much as 5.8 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
New data from the Swiss-based World Glacier Monitoring Service shows that 30 glaciers lost about 66 centimeters in thickness on average in 2005. More than 10 meters in thickness has melted from the target glaciers since 1980.
Last year, a U.S. research team said global temperatures are reaching a million-year high point.
The team, from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said global temperatures have been rising by 0.2 degrees per decade over the past 30 years.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.
