Understanding climate feedbacks #Auspol
Significantly positive
Human activities, most notably those causing increases in the concentration of carbon dioxide, are changing the climate. On the current trajectory of carbon emissions, very substantial climate are predicted by the end of the century.
If the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide has no knock-on effects, calculating the size of those changes would be straightforward. If we doubled the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere compared to pre-industrial levels, the Earth’s temperature would eventually balance out about 1.2C warmer.
But reality is somewhat more complicated. Once the Earth begins to warm, it triggers other processes on the surface and in the atmosphere. These are climate feedbacks. “Positive” feedbacks will strengthen the warming, while “negative” ones will weaken it. The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that the combined effects of all feedbacks is likely to be significantly positive.
Uncertainty around the…
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