More recently, the IPCC released its overall synthesis report.
Saturday's synthesis report was reviewed and approved by delegates from 130 nations gathered here this week.
This fourth and final assessment — the so-called synthesis report — seeks to combine lessons from all three.
"You look to a synthesis report to provide clarity, to clarify what was obscure in previous reports," said Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist at Princeton University.
Main points A draft of today's synthesis report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change presents the challenge in five key areas.
Follow @pjladdpost2015 on Twitter Coming Friday 5 December: Ban Ki Moon's synthesis report explained Read more stories like this: What are the most important questions for global development?
The next step in the journey is the synthesis report of the UN secretary-general, an advance version of which will be released later this week.
Even though the synthesis report is more alarming than its predecessors, some researchers believe that it still understates the trajectory of global warming and its impact.
The hub for this work is the Census of Marine Life, a 10-year project initiated under the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation that is scheduled to produce a first synthesis report on marine species in 2010.
A chart appears on page 45 of the 2007 Synthesis Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), laying out projections for what global temperature and sea level should look like by the end of this century.
The IPCC will publish an official synthesis of the three reports in Copenhagen in October, but here's my own synthesis report in – as is the vogue – less than 140 characters: Climate change is real.
