Climate Change: Stronger, Faster, Sooner

From Architecture Week, a discussion of impacts on health, food, ecosystems, water, and more:

Recent scientific research — published since the deadline for the latest assessment report from the IPCC — reveals that global warming is accelerating far beyond the 2007 IPCC forecasts. This brief collects some of the key findings, including particular impacts of climate change in Europe. . . . Indeed important aspects of climate change seem to have been underestimated and the impacts are being felt sooner. For example, early signs of change suggest that the less than 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of global warming that the world has experienced to date may have already triggered the first tipping point of the Earth's climate system — the disappearance of summer Arctic sea ice. This process could open the gates to rapid and abrupt climate change, rather than the gradual changes that have been forecast so far.