The Earth’s climate is a dynamic system. It is impacted by a number of external forcings, such as variations in solar irradiance and anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. These factors cause primary changes to the climate by altering the Earth’s energy budget and carbon cycle. Once these changes occur, they can set in motion a number of additional processes which can further impact the climate. These secondary changes are called climate feedbacks, and can either enhance the primary changes (positive feedback) or moderate them (negative feedback). Here, we will look at examples of both positive and negative climate feedbacks, and consider the impacts of these feedbacks for our future climate.
Positive feedback occurs when an initial change triggers a series of processes that strengthen the initial change. In the case of climate feedbacks, we can think of this as a warming climate causing changes to the Earth system that then cause further warming. In this context, ‘positive feedback’ doesn’t mean that something is good or desirable, it just refers to the direction of change.
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