Sunday, 6 June 2021

Dominos?

Some 3 million computer animations, looking at the Western Antarctic icesheet, Greenland, the warm Atlantic Gulf Stream and the Amazon rain forest, were carried out ((https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/03/climate-tipping-points-could-topple-like-dominoes-warn-scientists). These four features were chosen for the animations, because they clearly have major impacts on the Earth's climate. They may also be prone to 'tipping points', where a change, once started, cannot be reversed. Many scientists believe that tipping points for the melting of the large icesheets have already been reached. Even when global heating was less than two degrees Centigrade above pre-Industrial levels, a third of the animations,resulted in a 'domino effect'. Reaching the tipping point in one location, caused the other zones to sequentially collapse, like a line of dominos. A two degree Centigrade rise was the upper limit of global heating agreed at the Paris accord. A two degree rise appears potentially catastrophic. Even a 1.5 degree rise (the lower/preferred limit in the Paris accord) is far from 'safe' in such scenarios. Urgent and substantial action is needed to limit climate change. They may 'only' be animations but, by the time the 'real deal' is underway, it will be too late, if the domino effect kicks in.

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