Climate tipping points due
The Amazon could be reduced in the next 50 years as a result of climate change
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Tuesday, 05, Feb 2008 12:33
A number of crucial 'tipping points' in the state of the Earth could be passed in the next 100 years, according to a new study.
The term tipping point describes a critical threshold at which a small change in human activity can have large, long-term consequences for the Earth's climate system.
An international team of researchers argue in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that nine tipping points are likely in the next few hundred years.
They predict that in one year the Indian summer monsoon could collapse and that the Arctic sea-ice will have melted in about ten years.
A decade's time could also see the greening of the Sahara/Sahel and disruption of the west African monsoon.
Both the Amazon rainforest and Boreal forest could be reduced in the next 50 years while the researchers estimate that in the next century the El Nino southern oscillation could increase and the Atlantic thermohaline could collapse.
In 300 years the team believe the Greenland ice sheet will have decayed and the West Antarctic ice sheet will have collapsed.
Their study also suggests that early warning systems could be established using real-time monitoring and modelling to detect the proximity of certain tipping points.
"Society must not be lulled into a false sense of security by smooth projections of global change," said Professor Tim Lenton from the University of East Anglia.
"Our findings suggest that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point within this century under human-induced climate change. The greatest threats are tipping of the Arctic sea-ice and the Greenland ice sheet, and at least five other elements could surprise us by exhibiting a nearby tipping point."