Excerpt
Whatever the outcome of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, Nature may have some extremely nasty surprises up its sleeve, say scientists.
They say Earth's biosphere has numerous "tipping points" - triggers that cause global warming and its impacts to lurch up a gear or two, rather than occur than in a smooth, incremental way.
In other words, the planet itself would become the main driver of warming, making the crisis far more difficult to manage.
Many of the tipping points have only been discovered within the last decade or so, and experts admit to many unknowns as to how and when they could occur.
Here is a summary of the main triggers, outlined by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and in studies published in peer-reviewed journals:
- ARCTIC SEA ICE LOSS
- GREENLAND AND WEST ANTARCTIC ICE SHEETS
- PERMAFROST TIME BOMB
- SAGGING SINKS (CO2 Sinks)
(See full article for details of triggers)
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