Terms: tundra
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Categories

• Science > Ecology > Oceans
• Science > Ecology > Polar Ice Caps
• Social Studies > Current Events > Politics > USA
• Science > Catastrophic Climate Change > Catastrophic Climate Change
• Science > Anthropology > Evolution > Neanderthals
• Social Studies > Current Events > Science

Specific Results

1. -01-14-06 Global Warming May Trigger a Very, Very Long Warming (International Herald Tribune)
   "The Arctic, particularly, is filled with what amount to flippable climate switches, including natural repositories of carbon, like boggy tundra, that could emit vast amounts of greenhouse gases should the current warming trend pass certain points, said Jonathan Overpeck, the director of the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth at the University of Arizona."
   
   "This could amplify warming and take the climate into a realm beyond anything experienced through human evolution." 12-05

2. -001 Can We Prevent Global Warming? (Newsweek.com)
   Secretary of Energy Chu: "Right now, the climate scientists feel that if all humans shut off carbon emissions today, it will still glide up by about 1 degree centigrade. In the business-as-usual scenarios, Nicholas Stern says there's a 50 percent chance we may go to 5 degrees centigrade.... And certain tipping points might be triggered. We can adapt to 1 or 2 degrees. More than that, there is no adaptation strategy."
   
   "So the big fear is that once the tundra thaws, those microbes wake up, they digest all that carbon. It goes up in the atmosphere. At that point, no matter what humans do, it's out of our control. This is the realization in the last decade that has caused many of us to get very, very concerned. Adaptation at 1 or 2 degrees will be painful, it will cause a lot of hurt and pain, but adaptation at 5 or 6 degrees—I'm terribly frightened that that's catastrophic." 04-09

3. Survival of the Weakest: Why Neanderthals Went Extinct (Newsweek.com)
   "Because Neanderthals were not adept at tracking herds on the tundra, they had to retreat with the receding woodlands. They made their last stand where pockets of woodland survived, including in a cave in the Rock of Gibraltar. There, Finlayson and colleagues discovered in 2005, Neanderthals held on at least 2,000 years later than anywhere else before going extinct, victims of bad luck more than any evolutionary failings, let alone any inherent superiority of their successors." 07-09