<
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4806281-climate-change-earth-systems-collapse-risk-study/>
"Four key pillars of the global climate are melting in the heat trapped by
rising fossil fuel emissions, a new study has found.
The relatively stable climate that nurtured human civilization depends in large
part on these structures: the ice sheets of Greenland and West Antarctica, the
Amazon rainforest and the Atlantic currents that warm Europe.
Under current policies, the world faces a scenario in which those pillars have
roughly even odds of either surviving or collapsing during the next three
centuries, according to results published Thursday in
Nature Communications.
The scientists warned that if the pillars are fatally undermined by heat, the
resulting damage could prove impossible to undo — even if temperatures are
successfully brought down later in the 21st century.
Even so, the long timeline of those findings makes them, if anything,
optimistic relative to other recent ones: They come on the heels of a string of
disturbing studies about key global systems like the conveyor-belt Atlantic
current that keeps Europe temperate, or the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that keeps
global sea levels stable.
They also come as the impacts of rising heat become increasingly obvious, seen
in a range of phenomena including record-breaking temperatures — such as those
baking Olympic athletes in Paris — thousand-year storms and worsening harvests.
Here’s what you need to know."
Via Kenny Chaffin.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
