News Analysis

Pentagon Warns About Rapid Climate Change

An October 2003 report titled “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security” has generated a flurry of media attention. The study was prepared by the Global Business Network for the U.S. Department of Defense’s internal think tank, the Office of Net Assessment. The report defines a worst-case global event of rapid climate change due to the abrupt slowing of the ocean’s thermohaline conveyor over the course of as little as a decade.

The thermohaline conveyor is a system of ocean currents driven by temperature and salinity that keeps land masses adjacent to the North Atlantic relatively temperate. If the thermohaline conveyor system shuts down, computer models indicate winters in the Eastern U.S. becoming much colder than they are now; hot, windy, prolonged droughts occurring in the Southwest; and growing seasons in the Midwest significantly shortening while being plagued by extreme weather events. These conditions would persist for decades or centuries.

Published April 1, 2004

(2004, April 1). Pentagon Warns About Rapid Climate Change. Retrieved from https://www.buildinggreen.com/news-analysis/pentagon-warns-about-rapid-climate-change