Abrupt Climate Shifts Likely as Global Temperatures Keep Rising

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By Sarah Derouin, Eos/AGU. 

Excerpt: As temperatures, biodiversity losses, and sea levels rise globally, scientists are concerned about the likelihood of abrupt climatic shifts occurring, particularly within sensitive subsystems of the climate system such as the Amazon rainforest, Antarctic sea ice, and the Tibetan Plateau. Abrupt shifts can manifest as...large and sudden changes in the rate of precipitation in a monsoon system, ice melt in Antarctica, or permafrost thaw in the Northern Hemisphere. Terpstra et al. sought to identify abrupt shifts that might occur in the future ...[examining] outputs from 57 models [that] simulated a climate change scenario over 150 years, with carbon dioxide concentration increasing by 1% annually until it reached 4 times preindustrial levels. ...48 of the 57 showed an abrupt shift in at least one subsystem over the modeled period.... 

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