Global Warming Close to Becoming Irreversible
Global Warming Close to Becoming Irreversible
The world is close to reaching tipping points that will make it irreversibly hotter, making this decade critical in efforts to contain global warming, scientists warned on Monday.
By Nina Chestney
LONDON (Reuters) - The world is close to reaching tipping points that will make it irreversibly hotter, making this decade critical in efforts to contain global warming, scientists warned on Monday. Scientific estimates differ but the world's temperature looks set to rise by six degrees Celsius by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are allowed to rise uncontrollably.
As emissions grow, scientists say the world is close to reaching thresholds beyond which the effects on the global climate will be irreversible, such as the melting of polar ice sheets and loss of rainforests.
"This is the critical decade. If we don't get the curves turned around this decade we will cross those lines," said Will Steffen, executive director of the Australian National University's climate change institute, speaking at a conference in London.
Despite this sense of urgency, a new global climate treaty forcing the world's biggest polluters, such as the United States and China, to curb emissions will only be agreed on by 2015 - to enter into force in 2020.
"We are on the cusp of some big changes," said Steffen. "We can ... cap temperature rise at two degrees, or cross the threshold beyond which the system shifts to a much hotter state."
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One of the most worrying and unknown thresholds is the Siberian permafrost, which stores frozen carbon in the soil away from the atmosphere.
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http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=global-warming-close-to-becoming-ir
The Doctor.
(17,266 posts)We'll be lucky to avoid becoming Venus.
FlaGranny
(8,361 posts)ice would desalinize the gulf stream, causing it to stop flowing and moderating the climate, causing a new ice age, or do they now think it'll just keep getting hotter?
tech3149
(4,452 posts)But I am one helluva diagnostician. From my point of view, we're already over the cliff. Most people don't pay enough attention to notice how the climate has changed over the last five decades. Those "elected representatives" that have the power to do something about it don't have the political will and won't bite their masters hand.
The only hope we have is to get natural and build community.
Learn to grow your own food and get to know your neighbors. There is no way we can survive catastrophic climate change on our own. We can only survive as a community.
Build that community now while you still have a chance.
I've got great neighbors and a few idiots but if we share our skills there isn't anything we can't do.