Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered
This was actually the sort of thing I was hoping for more info on when I wrote the OP. What sorts of things could tip it off, and how such a catastrophe would, for instance, kill of the north american wheat fields.
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Well, by
some models we're heading for a
tipping-point catastrophe IRL. There's a lot involved, but higher temperatures lead to more water vapor and
methane being released, both of which are
generally more powerful greenhouse gases than CO2, leading to
ecological strain, Etc. Etc. Etc. Also, once the oceans absorb enough CO2 and acidify a lot of marine life will no longer be able to make shells, coral goes extinct, the plankton will have a die-off,
other annoyances including
shutting down some drivers of ocean currents, world fisheries collapse, etc., etc., etc.
There's a lot of etc., etc., etc. in all of this. But I'm not making it up- this is some of the stuff that climate scientists worry about. Wikipediate
hothouse Earth, the
Azolla event (which is the exact
opposite of what I described above) and, hell, anything on the
hockey stick model. If you want dire models they are there to be had. Just go with the worst predictions you can find- I'm sure there are some terrifying ones out there.
You could combine a few motifs. The above causes strain on the world's (green revolution) agriculture and attempts are made to genetically engineer a way out of it, which results in some sort of accidental viral blight, and so on.
But there is all sorts of stuff on Wikipedia. Start
here and follow links as whim strikes you.