How long do you have to survive if climate change does not stop?

Answer 1

Climate is any long term change in weather. Most climate studies use five year running averages to show trends. Two or three cold years is just a cold spell, it does not necessarily herald any change in climate. By the time the fifth year of a trend sets in (more rain, less rain, etc.) we can say with a measure of confidence that climate appears to be changing.

If it changes back, the five year record was still long enough to represent a little change. Climate change driven by natural events typically occurs over very long time scales. You may hear people say that the 11 year solar cycle drives earth's climate. This claim is baseless, in that we have never determined any 11 year climate cycle. The measured solar variation over the past four decades is considered too small to have any measurable impact on earth's climate.

We have charted earth's temperature increase over the past century, and the rate of ocean level rise. We have every reason to anticipate this well established trend will not ony continue, but accelerate, just as it accelerated each of the past three decades. The rate of increase has slowed this decade, which climate scientists attribute to the unpredictable vagaries of weather, but the change is still increasing. Climate change does not mean each year must be a new record year.

The threat of climate change is not so much against individual survival, but instead a source of economic hardship. Continuing ocean rise will eventually threaten coastal areas around the world, flooding crop land, increasing droughts, and displacing populations. Our species is quite adaptable and we could drive atmospheric CO2 levels about 10 times higher than they are currently before increasing direct risk to human health. We just recentlly broached 400 ppm, and the recommended long term exposure limit is about 5000 ppm.

The environmental impact of raising CO2 anywhere near this level would, of course, be catastrophic. Many scientists suspect 350 ppm may be the maximum sustainable level for atmopsheric CO2 concentrations.

So while the survival of our species is not being called into question by continued climate change, the environmental disaster caused by floods, droughts, and storms is anticipated to eventually result in the deaths of hundreds of millions of people, plus the extinction of numerous other species.