Cost of melting permafrost and resulting release of methane and carbon dioxide from the Arctic calculated by study to be as much as 70 trillion dollars

The Arctic does, unfortunately, have a built-in exaggeration of any heating. The bodies and vegetation of inhabitants of the Arctic have been locked away in the Arctic permafrost for millennia. As the Earth warms this permafrost starts to melt for the first time in millenia releasing this huge store of global warming gases.

It is thought that the amount of gas is stored within the permafrost is high enough to increase the global warming effect by as much as 5% worldwide.

It also has a natural feedback loop in the sense that white snow reflects emissions from the Sun straight back into space. When the snow melts the dark ground that takes it place does not reflect the Sun’s energy but instead absorbs it adding to the warming trend.

Apart from being a worldwide catastrophe, it is thought that global warming is going to impact places such as Africa and India far greater than places at other latitude. Given that this is where the majority of the poor countries of the world are concentrated it is likely to only exacerbate the differences in wealth. In the most extreme of the climate predictions much of Africa and India will become uninhabitable leading to potentially billions of climate refugees heading North.

Giving how poorly Europe has coped with the numbers coming North in recent decades (in comparison minuscule to this huge number that could have to move) I cannot see Europe coping with this in any sensible way. It should also be noted that the numbers that have come in recent decades have already led to a great increase in far right parties across Europe and a huge increase in this is likely to make that situation far worse.

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