Pentagon report suggests global warming could trigger catastrophic freezing.

• Author: Assadourian, Erik
• Position: Environmental Intelligence

In January, the Pentagon shared with Fortune Magazine a report that had gathered the analyses of leading climate scientists to forecast possible political, social, and environmental scenarios if today's releases of greenhouse gases triggered "abrupt climate change"--a kind of disruption that could conceivably occur in as short a period as a decade. Abrupt climate change could be triggered by an ice-melt-driven collapse or disruption of the "Ocean Conveyor," a global current that circulates warmer, saltier water from the equator to the colder polar regions. This "oceanic heat pump" (of which the Gulf Stream is a part) plays a key role in keeping Europe and North America warm, and significantly moderates winter temperatures.

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The Pentagon report suggested that abrupt climate change could trigger a series of horrific destabilizing effects. A sudden drop of temperature in North America and Europe could disrupt agricultural production and increase already growing demand for fossil fuels. In addition, as the Ocean Conveyor plays a key role in the global hydrological cycle, its disruption could cause "megadroughts" in some areas, such as the southern United States, and violent storms in many others. Further, the authors forecast that these changes could trigger political instabilities, immense transfers of refugees in destabilized areas, and possibly even wars over increasingly taxed resources.

The report was primarily conducted as an analytical...