Climate change is increasingly fueling global warming, creating dangerous feedback loops not fully accounted for in climate models or emissions goals. Scientists have long warned that warming would lead to more warming, but recent studies are showing just how powerful these cascading effects could be. They also reveal how much faster the planet may warm this century.
Unaccounted Feedbacks
A study in Environmental Research Letters found that thawing permafrost, intensifying wildfires, and warmer wetlands alone could drive global average temperatures up 0.2 °C to 0.4 °C this century. This adds to the 2.6°C of warming above preindustrial levels that modelers already expect through 2100.
The additional heat could subject many cities to monthslong heat waves and expose hundreds of millions of people to flooding. The problem is that none of the models used in major UN climate reports account for all these feedback effects. Many do not incorporate any, leaving a large blind spot in our understanding of future warming.
Accelerated Timeline
A separate analysis in One Earth concluded the world may be further off track than believed. It found that thawing permafrost, increasing boreal forest fires, and warming tropical wetlands may shorten the time before the planet breaches the 1.5 °C and 2 °C warming thresholds by as much as 25%.
Climate models and UN reports must be updated to better represent these effects. Nations must also step up their efforts to reduce emissions to reflect this improving understanding of the dangers, says Sam Abernethy, a climate scientist at Spark Climate Solutions.
Efforts to Adapt
At least some progress is being made. Spark Climate Solutions kick-started an initiative called the Warming-Induced Greenhouse Gas Emissions Model Intercomparison Project. More than 20 international teams are running the same set of analyses to better understand feedback effects.
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Researchers hope the UN will incorporate these results into its next major climate assessment, due in 2029. That report will update estimates of remaining emissions before key temperature thresholds are crossed.
What is already clear is that the planet is rapidly warming and nations haven’t done nearly enough to cut fossil-fuel pollution. Even if emissions halt, warming-driven emissions could continue. So research groups are exploring what nations could do to control feedback emissions.
Scientists at the Woodwell Climate Research Center are investigating how to prevent fires near carbon-rich permafrost. The Environmental Defense Fund’s Climate Innovation Initiative is backing research on adding compounds to wetlands to counteract methane emissions.
Several startups are also exploring solutions. They are looking into suppressing lightning strikes that ignite fires in high latitudes, placing synthetic mats above permafrost, and using autonomous drones to quickly suppress high-emissions fires.
Investigating all these ideas is worthwhile. But researchers are only in the earliest stages of figuring out how much these efforts could reduce emissions across vast, changing global ecosystems.