Looming Danger of Abrupt Climate Change

The National Research Council of the National Academies (NRCNA) has pre-published (available to the public as of Dec. 2013), an extensive 200-pg study: “Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change, Anticipating Surprises.”

According to the NRCNA analysis, the rapid decrease of Arctic sea ice over the past three decades is likely to have irreversible impact on the Arctic ecosystem. This event of “abrupt climate change” is already in motion, disrupting the marine food web, habitat of mammals, erosion of coastline, and shifts in climate and weather patterns throughout the Northern Hemisphere. This has already been witnessed via 100-year floods and severe embedded droughts as well as bouts of extreme weather conditions throughout the hemisphere.

The National Research Council of the National Academies’ report also foresees eventual mass extinction of several species, sans further climate change, due to habitat destruction, fragmentation, and over-exploitation. This, they claim, would be equivalent in magnitude to the wipe out of the dinosaurs, but it would probably be centuries away. However, the report goes on to warn, if the ongoing pressures of climate change continue, comparable levels of extinction could occur before the year 2100. So, in plain English, if humankind continues burning fossil fuels like crazy over the next several decades, it’s lights out for many of the planet’s species.

“Lacking concerted action by the world’s nations, it is clear that the future climate will be warmer, sea levels will rise, global rainfall patterns will change, and ecosystems will be altered… The current rate of carbon emissions is changing the climate system at an accelerating pace, making the chances of crossing tipping points all the more likely… surprises are indeed inevitable,” Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change, Anticipating Surprises, (Prepublication Version), National Research Council of the National Academies, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., December 2013.