Climatic Changes That Make the World Flip

Matthews, Robert, UNESCO Courier

Global warming's impact on the environment is not necessarily a drawn-out affair. Recent evidence shows that dramatic changes or 'climatic flips' could happen virtually overnight.

The once-green land of Ireland turned into a frozen wilderness. Harp seals swimming among ice-floes off the coast of France. Polar bears prowling the streets of Amsterdam. These are the images conjured up by the latest research into global warming.

Yes, you read that correctly: global warming - the rise in the world's average temperature caused by the trapping of the sun's heat by pollution in the atmosphere.

If you are baffled by that, then prepare to be shocked. For the same research is now suggesting that such dramatic changes in the climate of northern Europe could take place in as few as 10 years.

Again, this figure is not a misprint: no zero has gone missing. Scientists have recently uncovered compelling evidence that global warming can have a devastating impact on timescales far shorter than anyone believed possible. Not centuries, not even decades, but years, in what are being called "climatic flips". One leading expert has recently gone on record to warn that some north Atlantic countries could find themselves plunged into Arctic conditions over the space of just 10 years.

Risk of sudden upheaval

In geological terms, that is as fast as the blink of an eye. But even in human terms, such a rate of climatic change is incredibly - and quite probably intolerably - rapid. It is far from clear whether any economy or agricultural system could cope with such sudden upheaval.

Yet evidence is now mounting that such "climatic flips" not only can happen, but have happened in the past. It is evidence that adds new urgency to the global warming debate, which has lost much of its momentum in recent years. It also highlights the frightening complexity of the task facing scientists trying to predict the earth's response to human activity.

Arguments about climatic change typically focus on how increasing levels of so-called greenhouse gases - principally carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels - in the earth's atmosphere trap ever more of the sun's heat.

Huge efforts have been put into predicting the likely global temperature rise caused by the extra greenhouse gases, and current best estimates point to a rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius or so over the next century.

But …

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Publication information: Article title: Climatic Changes That Make the World Flip. Contributors: Matthews, Robert - Author. Magazine title: UNESCO Courier. Publication date: November 1999. Page number: 10. © 1984 UNESCO. COPYRIGHT 1999 Gale Group.

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