from Futurism

MAJOR EARTH SYSTEMS ON TRACK FOR COLLAPSE, SCIENTISTS FIND

THAT’S GONNA LEAVE A MARK.

by SHARON ADARLO

Imagine this dire scenario: the Atlantic Ocean’s sea currents which bring warm water to Europe collapses, making large swaths of the continent as cold as the Arctic Circle.

In a grim turn, that’s just the scenario that a team of European scientists are warning about in a new study in the journal Nature Communications: that this catastrophic collapse — along with the ruination of the Amazon rainforest and the melting of polar ice — is on track to actually happen if we continue along our current path.

Specifically, the scientists say these major Earth systems, important for keeping the global climate stable for human civilization, face a 45 percent or greater chance of collapsing in the next 300 years, even if we temporarily bring back global warming below the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold. Worse, the collapse may be irreversible.

[ from Futurism ]