Climate ‘tipping points’ can be better understood and predicted using climate change data taken from the ancient past, new research shows.
Current understanding of tipping points, in which the climate system exceeds a threshold beyond which large and often irreversible changes occur, is limited. This is because such an event has not occurred in recent times and certainly not since scientists started to record climate data.
Earth System models, routinely used to predict climate, are taken from our understanding of the physical, chemical and biological processes that work together to shape our planet’s environment.
Scientists know that these models do not provide a complete picture, however, because they fail to simulate known climate events from the past.
Read more at University of Birmingham
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