The National Academy
of Sciences has just published an update to their 2002 publication Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises.
Titled Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises, the new report XXX.
The
2002 report emphasized that abrupt changes occur during times of changing
forcings, such as today when we are pumping tons and tons of CO2 into the
atmosphere. From the reports executive summary:
Abrupt climate changes were especially common when the climate
system was being forced to change most rapidly. Thus, greenhouse warming and
other human alterations of the earth system may increase the possibility of
large, abrupt, and unwelcome regional or global climatic events. The abrupt
changes of the past are not fully explained yet, and climate models typically
underestimate the size, speed, and extent of those changes. Hence, future
abrupt changes cannot be predicted with confidence, and climate surprises are
to be expected.
These changes
include greatly increased rainfall or storms, as well as droughts. The new
report builds on the work of the previous report and also considers the tipping
points that are the result of cumulative changes over long periods of time.
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