SEATTLE - Scientists are basically done arguing about the causes of climate change: global warming is "very likely" caused by people.

That's the message a University of Washington research scientist, the lead author of one chapter in a new international global warming report, says he hopes every American will hear.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the report Friday in Paris, where it was due to be officially released later in the day.

The phrase "very likely," as used in the report, translates to a more than 90 percent certainty that global warming is caused by man's burning of fossil fuels.

Philip Mote talked to reporters here a few days before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its report. The 20-page report represents the most authoritative science on global warming.

The panel, a group of hundreds of scientists and representatives of 113 governments, used its strongest language yet, saying now that world has begun to warm, hotter temperatures and rises in sea level "would continue for centuries" no matter how much humans control their pollution. The report also linked the warming to the recent increase in stronger hurricanes.

Mote noted that one change from the panel's last report, six years ago, is how precise the predictions have become.

Instead of just giving a range of possibilities, the report now pinpoints the most likely expectations of how much the oceans will rise each year and how big an impact the greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide - will have on the temperature of the earth and its oceans.

In one way, this report is less dire - the oceans probably won't rise as fast as people thought six years ago - but Mote said this change, which he called one of the thorniest issues for scientists, is no reason for celebration.

One way the news has gotten worse since 2001 is the way scientists have tracked more and faster melting of the ice that covers and surrounds Greenland and Antarctica.

"It certainly looks like there's been a pretty dramatic change over the past 10 years," Mote said.

Scientists are not yet entirely sure what the news from Greenland will mean to the future of the world's oceans, but it has raised a red flag, said Mote, who was lead author of the section on snow, ice and frozen ground.

Mote and his colleague, Ed Sarachik, a UW professor of atmospheric sciences, said the new report didn't have any bad news specifically targeting the Pacific Northwest, but because climate change is a global problem, the local impacts must be assessed with a global perspective.

For example, because global warming would likely make desert regions more arid and destroy what little crop land is thriving in places like Africa, North America could find itself feeding more of the world and seeing more environmental refugees.

Mote said the harshest impacts will fall on the poorest countries, but the richer nations won't have the luxury to just ignore these results.

"It's very easy in the Pacific Northwest to forget how environmental stresses can drive conflicts in the world," added Lara Whitely Binder, an outreach specialist with the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group.