ON CLIMATE CHANGE: A CARTOON

Soo dear reader, if you want a suggestion on a good (and scarier even than the idea of Rober Pattison as the new Batman) read about climate change consequences and dynamics, well a bunch of scientists just published a comment paper on Nature which title is self-explanatory: "Climate tipping points — too risky to bet against" (P).

This dumb blog's cheap comment on the topic follows, via cartoon...

@sciencemug opinion on climate change
[Wave pic and beach pic are free images under Pixabay License (source: Pixabay); adapted by @sciencemug)]

NOTE

In hyper few quotes some main points (not all of 'em) of the paper:
- tipping points "refer to critical thresholds in a system that, when exceeded, can lead to a significant change in the state of the system, often with an understanding that the change is irreversible" (1)
- the system: Earth system
- examples of tipping points: "the loss of the Amazon rainforest or the West Antarctic ice sheet" (P)
- core message: tipping points may be reached even with a 1-2 °C raise of the temperature (P); moreover, there's the possibility of a global domino effect of these tipping points leading to a global, irreversible, catastrophic for human civilization tipping point
- example of such a domino effect: "Arctic sea-ice loss is amplifying regional warming, and Arctic warming and Greenland melting are driving an influx of fresh water into the North Atlantic. This could have contributed to a 15% slowdown since the mid-twentieth century of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a key part of global heat and salt transport by the ocean. Rapid melting of the Greenland ice sheet and further slowdown of the AMOC could destabilize the West African monsoon, triggering drought in Africa’s Sahel region. A slowdown in the AMOC could also dry the Amazon, disrupt the East Asian monsoon and cause heat to build up in the Southern Ocean, which could accelerate Antarctic ice loss"(P) 
- conclusion: the paper's title
- final comment: humanity is "in a state of planetary emergency" (P).

Well, what to say... Take care, dear human reader, at least till you still can.



Bibliography

P- Lenton, T.M., Rockström, J., Gaffney, O., Rahmstorf, S., Richardson, K., Steffen, W., and Schellnhuber, H.J. (2019). Climate tipping points — too risky to bet against. Nature 575, 592–595.

1- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2018). Global Warming of 1.5 ^oC (Chapter 3).