A new study by Scripps Institution of Oceanography finds a 5 percent chance that rapid global warming will be “catastrophic” or worse for the human race. The study led by Veerabhadran “Ram” Ramanathan, a distinguished professor of climate and atmospheric sciences and adviser to Pope Francis, found that an average global temperature increase greater than 3 degrees centigrade could result in “catastrophic” — and over 5 degrees “existential” — threat to humanity. These categories describe two low-probability but statistically significant scenarios that could play out by the century’s end according to an analysis of different models of global warming by...
