Runaway climate change describes a scenario in which the climate system passes a threshold or tipping point, after which internal positive feedback effects cause the climate to continue changing, even absent further external forcings. The runaway climate change continues until it is overpowered by negative feedback effects which cause the climate system to restabilise at a new state.
The phrase "runaway climate change" is used to describe a theory in which positive feedbacks result in rapid climate change. It is used in the popular media and by environmentalists with reference to concerns about rapid global warming. Some astronomers use the similar expression runaway greenhouse effect to describe a situation where the climate deviates catastrophically and permanently from the original state - as happened on Venus. It is rarely used in relation to climate change events in climatological literature.
Read more about Runaway Climate Change: Related Terms, Feedbacks, Examples, Current Risk, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words runaway, climate and/or change:
“The reality is that zero defects in products plus zero pollution plus zero risk on the job is equivalent to maximum growth of government plus zero economic growth plus runaway inflation.”
—Dixie Lee Ray (b. 1924)
“Is not their climate foggy, raw, and dull,
On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale,
Killing their fruit with frowns?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Most men would feel shame if caught preparing with their own hands precisely such a dinner, whether of animal or vegetable food, as is every day prepared for them by others. Yet till this is otherwise we are not civilized, and, if gentlemen and ladies, are not true men and women. This certainly suggests what change is to be made.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)