Report: Earth likely closer to climate 'tipping point' - Spectrum News NY1
Report: Earth likely closer to climate 'tipping point'
A chilling new study published in the journal, Nature Communications, finds that the planet may be closer to the climate “tipping point” than scientists had believed.
That means we may be getting to the point where some climate changes are irreversible if we don’t take action very soon.
Daniel Zarrilli, Special Advisor for Climate and Sustainability at Columbia University, joined “News All Day” for an analysis of the study. He also served as Chief Climate policy advisory under former Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Zarrilli says that the study reviews the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current. It’s one of the ocean currents that regulates our climate, “and it helps regulate how temperatures are in different parts of the world and rainfall amounts.
What these scientists have found is that we are closer to a tipping point where that ocean current could shutdown which would have massive socio and economic consequences.”
Zarrilli explains that we’re putting “too many heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere and that’s causing these changes to occur to a climate system that has been stable for the rise of civilization. This is alarming.”
He also said that the current heat waves around the world, the Canadian fires, the flooding in Vermont, all of these are related to climate change.
He says that New Yorkers can continue to support climate related actions to protect ourselves from what’s coming, including slashing emissions.
For more information, go to Climate.Columbia.edu.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.