Climate Change Too Slow to Get Under Control

[markodochartaigh]

6. Less than 5% of the excess energy

goes into melting icecaps, and, because of the latent heat of fusion of water, the ice caps are an incredible energy sink. Even with ice shelf destabilization, by the time enough energy has been released to raise sea level by a few meters so much energy will have been absorbed into the atmosphere and oceans that serial cereal harvest failures are almost assured. Three or four grain harvest failures in a decade in Argentina, the US and Canada, Ukraine, India, and/or China will cause horrible destabilization and likely kill billions. Scientists are working on heat tolerant RuBisCo activase but this should be funded on a Manhattan Project scale.