Climate change may be happening more slowly than scientists thought. But the world still needs to deal with it.
It is not clear why climate change has “plateaued” (see article). It could be because of
greater natural variability in the climate, because clouds dampen warming or
because of some other little-understood mechanism in the almost infinitely
complex climate system. But whatever the reason, some of the really ghastly
scenarios—where the planet heated up by 4°C or more this century—are coming to
look mercifully unlikely. Does that mean the world no longer has to worry?
No, for two reasons. The first is uncertainty. The science that points
towards a sensitivity lower than models have previously predicted is still
tentative. The error bars are still there. The risk of severe warming—an
increase of 3°C, say—though diminished, remains real. There is also uncertainty
over what that warming will actually do to the planet. The sharp reduction in
Arctic ice is not something scientists expected would happen at today’s
temperatures. What other effects of even modest temperature rise remain
unknown?
If the world has a bit more breathing space to deal with global warming, that
will be good. But breathing space helps only if you actually do something with
it.
Kommentar: Summan av kardemumman är
således att vi kanske fortfarande har lite tid på oss, men att faran på intet
sätt är över./Tord
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