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Title: Climate 'Feedback Loops' Could Worsen Global Warming By 30%, Study
Finds

Link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/09/11/0014...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Rising global
temperatures caused by the burning of fossil fuels are transforming the
world's forests, wetlands and tundra to the point they are releasing
emissions that could further worsen global heating by as much as 30%, a new
study has found. As the world heats up, permafrost in the high latitudes is
thawing, fiercer wildfires are burning in drying forests and wetlands and
lakes are warming. All of these changes are themselves causing the release of
planet-heating methane and carbon dioxide locked in trees and soils,
therefore worsening the climate crisis, the paper states. While scientists
have long known of these "feedback loops" that amplify the impact of direct
pollution from burning coal, oil and gas, the emissions from natural sources
are largely unaccounted for in climate projections. This additional heating
is however significant, researchers found, with emissions from natural
sources set to amplify global heating by 20% to 30% by the end of this
century. This would add an estimated 0.2C to 0.4C to the global average
temperature by this time, depending on the overall action taken by countries
to combat the climate crisis. [...] This latest paper makes clear that action
by countries to cut fossil fuel pollution will still lessen the amount of
additional emissions that come from landscapes. Under the most optimistic
climate scenario where emissions are cut quickly, natural sources will add
0.2C of warming, the paper found. Under a worse case higher emissions
scenario, 0.4C will likely be added. Current policies put in place by
governments are likely to see the global temperature rise to 2.6C above pre-
industrial times, according to Climate Action Tracker. This will likely cause
severe disruption and hardship to billions of people through sea level rise,
crop losses and other consequences. "This hidden multiplier is missing from
the models guiding climate policy, so those models are likely underestimating
how much warming is coming -- and overestimating how much carbon we can still
afford to emit," said Sam Abernethy, a scientist at Spark Climate Solutions
who led the research, published in Environmental Research Letters. The
disruption of the world�(TM)s carbon cycles is now being seen in "real time,"
said Rob Jackson, a Stanford University scientist and study co-author. "The
results are a wake-up call, and it�(TM)s imperative that they be included in
the next generation of climate policies," he added. "Failure to do so will
make meeting the world�(TM)s climate goals less and less likely."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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