Abrupt climate change

In comparison, climate models predict that under ongoing greenhouse gas emissions, the Earth's near surface temperature could depart from the usual range of variability in the last 150 years as early as 2047.

In terms of impacts, an abrupt change is one that takes place so rapidly and unexpectedly that human or natural systems have difficulty adapting to it.

Changes recorded in the climate of Greenland at the end of the Younger Dryas, as measured by ice-cores, imply a sudden warming of +10 °C (+18 °F) within a timescale of a few years.

[24] A five-year study led by the Oxford School of Archaeology and additionally conducted by Royal Holloway, University of London, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and the National Oceanography Centre Southampton[25] completed in 2013 called "Response of Humans to Abrupt Environmental Transitions" and referred to as "RESET" aimed to see if the hypothesis that humans have major development shifts during or immediately after abrupt climate changes with the aid of knowledge pulled from research on the palaeoenvironmental conditions, prehistoric archaeological history, oceanography, and volcanic geology of the last 130,000 years and across continents.

The event coincidentally happened with an estimated 192-year series of massive volcanic eruptions, attributed to Mount Takahe in West Antarctica.

The best-known examples are the several dozen shutdowns of the North Atlantic Ocean's Meridional Overturning Circulation during the last ice age, affecting climate worldwide.

[42] Scientists have stated, "Our synthesis of present knowledge suggests that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point within this century under anthropogenic climate change".