Tuesday 5 December 2017

A new trigger point

Climate Risks from Equatorial Atmospheric Super-Rotation



Paul Beckwith

If we continue on the current path of high greenhouse gas emissions, we risk triggering an abrupt change in our atmospheric circulation. 

As the band around the equator warms, intense convection adds energy to the winds aloft, which can speed up and become faster than the Earth’s rotation. 

This super-rotation state can confine water vapour within this band, thus reducing cloud cover at higher latitudes and causing a DOUBLING of climate sensitivity.




1 comment:

  1. "If we continue on the current path of high greenhouse gas emissions"
    What is this "if we continue' stuff? We are already at the point of NO ICE at some point, regardless of if we burn every drop of oil or stop tonight ??
    It is a form of denial to say any of this shit, ho hum, humans have injected up to 3 extinction events worth of CO2 into the environment, the fast heating planet will add way more, with CH4, and the carbon locked into all the plants and soils, the term we are looking for is 'runaway climate change'
    The only way we could reverse this unavoidable outcome is if we removed about 150 ppm CO2 and about 2 ppm CH4, and forced the environment into another ice age ... fat fucking chance of that happening. I appreciate Paul's efforts to inform, as one of the very few doing so he is great, but please stop the 'if we stop' shit, it will make fuck all difference now.

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