Roberto Guillermo Gomes
The WMO predicts that between 2020 and 2023 there is a 10% chance of a 1.5°C global temperature increase. This means that the UN goal of not exceeding this threshold will not be heeded because of the very pace of accelerating global warming. While by 2030 we will reach 450 ppm CO2, if we continue at the same rate of pollution, and as a result the fateful 2°C which will trigger the positive feedbacks that will cause the abrupt thawing of the continental Arctic permafrost and then of the submarine clathrates, which are already showing an active thawing process. At the same time, the floating ice at the North Pole will have disappeared during the summers, along with the albedo effect, and the Arctic Ocean will be warming to 5°C/7°C, triggering the release of methane gas hydrates from the bottom. Global temperatures will then soar to ~4º/6º C and up to 12º C at both poles, initiating accelerated melting of Greenland and Antarctica, potentially raising the oceans up to 60 metres in years rather than millennia, flooding all coastal cities and causing 600 million simultaneous environmental refugees.
