Could the Mayans be right? Climate Change nears tipping points in 2012

As we cross the prophesied date of the 'end of the world' (according to some interpretations of Mayan calendars), there is a more scientific, and more dangerous, reality emerging.

Scientists such as Dr. James Hansen of NASA have warned about a 'tipping point' or threshold at which we will no longer be able to stop global climate change, as it is likely to become irreversible due to feedback mechanisms.

So while the 'doomsayers' have been looking towards NASA for news of asteroids moving towards earth, there is a much more scientific and deadly potential catastrophe heading our way, from right here on earth.

For example, the melting permafrost contains vast quantities of methane gas, which is a powerful greenhouse gas more than twenty times as potent as carbon dioxide in warming the atmosphere.  UNEP has warned that most of the recent climate projections do not include the permafrost feedback.

Scientists have estimated that once we cross the 400ppm (parts per million) level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it will be difficult to stabilise the climate at 2 degrees of warming.

But this year, in 2012, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere actually reached the threshold of 400ppm in Barrow, Alaska, as discovered by NOAA scientists, and explained here by WRI.

The NOAA website contains a log of the monthly mean levels recorded at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, which shows this level creeping up and current reads 392ppm...

It is of course difficult to say where the exact tipping point will be.  Dr Hansen of NASA said we need to stabilise the CO2 level at 350ppm to have a chance to avoid overshooting tipping points and triggering irreversible change.  So it is already too high.  Stabilising at 450ppm leaves only a 50% chance of limiting warming to 2 degrees.

This month, the UN Climate talks in Doha ended in an extension of the Kyoto Protocol (which was also supposed to end in 2012), but agreement this covers only about 15% of total global greenhouse gas emissions.  Countries have decided to form a global UN agreement that includes all countries, but this will not be put in place until 2020.

By then, it may be too late.

Ironically, the Mayans themselves were wiped out my climate change, with anthropologists recently discovering that the.collapse in Mayan civilisation was due to drought (natural rather than man-made). The irony is immense.