In a Perspective, researchers explore the risk of crossing a planetary climate threshold due to Earth's intrinsic biogeophysical feedbacks that, notwithstanding reduction of human emissions, might lead to "Hothouse Earth" conditions, in which global average temperatures exceed the temperatures of any interglacial period of the past 1.2 million years.
Article #18-10141: "Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene," by Will Steffen et al.
MEDIA CONTACT: Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Brandenburg, GERMANY; e-mail: < john@pik-potsdam.de >
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences