Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Thresholds and tipping points
The relationship between a climate forcing such as GHGs and the climate response is com-
plicated. In an ideal world it would be a simple relationship with little or no delay, but we
already know that there is inertia in the climate system so that it responds to GHG forcing
with a 10-20 year delay. So we can examine the way different parts of the climate system
respond to climate change with four scenarios (see
Figure 28
).
