Azothius wrote
Despite the title of this thread, imho, we've been in the instability phase for a while now, but the level of instability keeps increasing and the planet is edging ever closer to crossing the threshold....Jedrider wrote
What makes you think that we haven't already crossed this threshold? Instability is good compared to a hot house Earth IMO.
I certainly agree that climate instability is better than a hot house earth.
And perhaps I was unclear, I do tend to believe that we have passed the tipping point of being able to avert climate chaos. I agree that it is likely "baked in", as they say.
Looking at how I distinguished Climate Instability from Climate Chaos:
Climate Instability: has an increased variability of weather systems that significantly exceed the established regional and seasonal parameters of temperature ranges, of the frequency of fluctuations in weather patterns, and of the occurrence of extreme events.
Climate Chaos: has a highly erratic variability of weather systems that greatly exceed the established regional and seasonal parameters of temperature ranges, of the frequency of fluctuations in weather patterns, and of the occurrence of extreme events.
The reason I believe that we have not yet crossed the threshold into actually experiencing climate chaos is that global food production is still largely unchanged. Once climate change/weather variability/extreme weather events have greatly impacted our ability to reliably raise food, that would meet my definition of climate chaos rather than climate instability.
Of course there has been some measurable effect already, but not yet that significant:
Climate change is already affecting global food production -- unequally
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 152047.htm
The world's top 10 crops -- barley, cassava, maize, oil palm, rapeseed, rice, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane and wheat -- supply a combined 83 percent of all calories produced on cropland. Yields have long been projected to decrease in future climate conditions. Now, new research shows climate change has already affected production of these key energy sources -- and some regions and countries are faring far worse than others.
Published in PLOS ONE, the University of Minnesota-led study, conducted with researchers from the University of Oxford and the University of Copenhagen, used weather and reported crop data to evaluate the potential impact of observed climate change. The researchers found that:
observed climate change causes a significant yield variation in the world's top 10 crops, ranging from a decrease of 13.4 percent for oil palm to an increase of 3.5 percent for soybean, and resulting in an average reduction of approximately one percent (-3.5 X 10e13 kcal/year) of consumable food calories from these top 10 crops;
impacts of climate change on global food production are mostly negative in Europe, Southern Africa, and Australia, generally positive in Latin America, and mixed in Asia and Northern and Central America;
half of all food-insecure countries are experiencing decreases in crop production -- and so are some affluent industrialized countries in Western Europe;
contrastingly, recent climate change has increased the yields of certain crops in some areas of the upper Midwest United States.
"There are winners and losers, and some countries that are already food insecure fare worse," says lead author Deepak Ray of the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment, whose high-resolution global crop statistics databases have also been used to help to identify how global crop production changes over time. These findings indicate which geographical areas and crops are most at risk, making them relevant to those working to achieve the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals of ending hunger and limiting the effects of climate change. Insights like these lead to new questions and crucial next steps.....
"The research documents how change is already happening, not just in some future time," says Ray.