19 June 2023 By MICHELLE STARR
“The impact of human activity on the Earth system could result in unpredictable chaos from which there is no return, physicists have calculated.
“Using a theory conceived to model superconductivity, a team of physicists led by Alex Bernadini of the University of Porto in Portugal showed that, after a certain point, we will not be able to restore equilibrium to Earth’s climate.
“A finite amount of human activity could result in a Hothouse Earth from which there is no return. They detailed their work in a paper made available in April 2022 on the preprint server arXiv that remains to be peer-reviewed.
“‘The implications of climate change are well known (droughts, heat waves, extreme phenomena, etc.),’ physicist Orfeu Bertolami told Live Science last year.
“‘If the Earth System gets into the region of chaotic behavior, we will lose all hope of somehow fixing the problem.’
“For some years now, extreme weather events seem to be occurring more regularly. Wildfires blaze, storms rage, temperatures reach new records. Climate scientists have warned that this is a consequence of human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and increases in farming.
“This has led to the proposal of a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene, a period in which human activity has led to a significant and marked impact on the entire Earth system, comprised of the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere…
“‘Even for this simple case, we observed the emergence of chaotic behavior in the equilibrium points of the Earth system. This leads to potentially important consequences if at least some components of the human activities actually follow logistic maps, which is a quite reasonable hypothesis, given the physical limitations of the planet-wide system we live in.’
“This outcome isn’t inevitable, which is something of a relief. But, the researchers say we need to consider it a real possibility for designing strategies to mitigate climate change and manage the Earth system in the future.
“The team’s paper appears on preprint server arXiv.”
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