Climate change may be escalating so fast it could be 'game over', scientists warn

New research suggests the Earth's climate could be more sensitive to greenhouse gases than thought, raising the spectre of an 'apocalyptic side of bad' temperature rise of more than 7C within a lifetime.

It is a vision of a future so apocalyptic that it is hard to even imagine.

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But, if leading scientists writing in one of the most respected academic journals are right, planet Earth could be on course for global warming of more than seven degrees Celsius within a lifetime.

According to the current best estimate, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), if humans carry on with a “business as usual” approach using large amounts of fossil fuels, the Earth’s average temperature will rise by between 2.6 and 4.8 degrees above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

However new research by an international team of experts who looked into how the Earth’s climate has reacted over nearly 800,000 years warns this could be a major under-estimate.

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In a paper in the journal Science Advances, they said the actual range could be between 4.78C to 7.36C by 2100, based on one set of calculations.

Some have dismissed the idea that the world would continue to burn fossil fuels despite obvious global warming, but emissions are still increasing despite a 1C rise in average thermometer readings since the 1880s.

Rather than promoting action to try to solve the problem, it is more likely that people will respond by dismissing it, ignoring it, or otherwise give up because what they do doesn't matter.

Scientific papers aren't good or bad depending on whether they trigger certain responses.

Eh... I really don't like impending-doom or hopelessness kind of language in any scientific report on the warming. Rather than promoting action to try to solve the problem, it is more likely that people will respond by dismissing it, ignoring it, or otherwise give up because what they do doesn't matter. But it does matter, because the bulk of scientific research indicates that how much warming we will see depends a lot on our present choices. There are a lot of different potential futures and we can choose between them.

There are a lot of groups trying out techniques for carbon sequestration, and some are having success on small scales. But scaling it up and doing it quickly enough to have an important effect is dubious at this time. And we still don't fully understand the potential unintended consequences of some geoengineering methods. So it is alarming that we must assume them in order to follow the low RCP scenarios.

Those are objectives outside the scope of science. Scientific papers aren't good or bad depending on whether they trigger certain responses.

We do not have a mechanism which ensures that scientific paradigms are not influenced by society, economy or authority. Period.

Would it be possible to convert the CO2 to O2 instead? Putting it back in the ground makes me think it is just making it a problem again for distant future generations (there's an analogy for it that I know, but I can't seem to remember it), unless I'm missing something?

But how helpful would it be to simply say "it's game over."?

In climate science, the bulk of research concludes that what will happen depends a lot on our choices.

IPCC lists certain scenarios, but says little about how those scenarios should be realised.