04.01.08 » Yes Magazine: Global Warming Feedback Loops

As early as 1896, Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius devised a basic formula to explain geologic changes in climate: add carbon dioxide, things heat up. Simple. But scientists have since learned that a little atmospheric temperature rise can unlock vicious feedback loops that speed global warming. Some of these feedbacks are already taking effect. Others may be triggered by further warming. If global temperatures continue to rise, some of these feedbacks could spiral beyond our ability to reverse them.

11.13.07 » The desertification-global warming feedback loop

Desertification amplifies climate change, and vice versa… Climate change has become the prime cause of an accelerating spread of deserts which threatens the world’s drylands… You’ll see a sort of feedback mechanism … quite a lot of carbon is captured in soil, so with more desertification (exposing the soil), you also get more CO2 emissions. They are two halves of the same coin.

08.29.06 » National Geographic: Global Warming Feedback Loop Caused by Methane, Scientists Say

According to Tessa Hill, a geologist at the University of California, Davis, more methane is released into the atmosphere from ocean deposits during periods of warming than previously thought. This expelled methane increases temperatures and releases more methane, creating a positive feedback loop. 

05.22.06 » Science Daily: Feedback Loops In Global Climate Change Point To A Very Hot 21st Century

Studies have shown that global climate change can set-off positive feedback loops in nature which amplify warming and cooling trends. Now, researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley have been able to quantify the feedback implied by past increases in natural carbon dioxide and methane gas levels. Their results point to global temperatures at the end of this century that may be significantly higher than current climate models are predicting.

02.18.06 » ABC News: What is a “Feedback Loop”?

Scientists: ‘Feedback Loops’ Are the Single-Biggest Threat to Civilization From Global Warming… In a feedback loop, the rising temperature on the Earth changes the environment in ways that then create even more heat… As the frozen sea surface of the Arctic ocean melts back, there’s less white to reflect the sun’s heat back into space — and more dark, open water to absorb that heat, which then melts the floating sea ice even faster.

Desertification, ocean methane, melting polar ice caps — all are like the image from Melville’s Mody Dick, of sharks swallowing their own tails.