Daniel Brouse and Sidd Mukherjee
I found myself thinking:
Glacial retreat alters weather patterns — rain, wind, atmospheric circulation —
transporting sediments and aerosols onto remaining ice sheets.
Surface darkening becomes biological terraforming.
Algae plumes and blooms spread.
Feedbacks cascade.Not abstractly —
but visibly.
Now.The poetic framing reflects something real: systems interacting in ways that once seemed implausible but are now measurable.
For decades, Sidd and I have studied applied systems analysis in nonlinear dynamic climate systems. We have co-authored papers on carbon cycles, jet stream dynamics, albedo shifts, brown carbon, AMOC instability, permafrost thaw, Amazon rainforest dieback, sea-level rise pulses, hydroclimate whiplash, Arctic sea ice loss, and interacting tipping points — using a probabilistic, ensemble-based model integrating socio-economic and ecological feedbacks within a dynamic nonlinear framework.
For many years, much of it remained theoretical.
By the early 2000s, we had gathered sufficient evidence to articulate what we called The Nonlinear Acceleration Hypothesis:
Climate feedback loops do not act independently. They interact synergistically in what we termed the Domino Effect — a cascade of tipped tipping points in which each destabilized system accelerates the next.
Since then, what was once hypothesis has steadily moved toward mainstream climate science. By 2024, the acceleration was observable to the layperson. As Sidd would say: “Just look out your window.”
The real issue is not any single dramatic event. It is the cumulative interaction of multiple reinforcing feedback loops that amplify warming and destabilization.
For example, a recent study identified a previously underappreciated Ice–Albedo feedback: mineral dust deposited on the Greenland ice sheet promotes algal growth, darkening the ice and accelerating melt. This raises deeper questions:
Fully cataloguing every feedback may be impossible. A practical heuristic may therefore be more useful. Our research suggests that many observable climate impacts are doubling in intensity or frequency on timescales of roughly 2 to 10 years. At current emission levels — with multiple feedbacks already activated — large regions of Earth risk becoming increasingly uninhabitable within this century.
The apparent acceleration has shifted from century-scale doubling to multi-year doubling within just three decades — not three millennia.
In 2023, Sidd remarked:
“Do you remember in the early 2000s when we thought we wouldn’t live to see the extreme changes from global warming?”
I replied:
“2023 may be the most significant year yet. We saw confirmation of tipping dynamics involving mountain glaciers, Greenland mass loss, Antarctic destabilization, and potentially AMOC weakening.”
Sidd responded:
“We suspected those. What stunned me was Canada burning. I never thought I’d see that.”
I asked:
“Will permafrost peatlands produce sustained zombie fires and trigger large-scale thaw feedback?”
Sidd answered:
“They already are. Siberia showed us.”
By 2025, I reflected:
We anticipated tipping points would eventually activate self-reinforcing loops. I was prepared for that in theory.
What I did not fully envision was the speed of interaction — the rapid coupling of physical, ecological, and economic systems into cascading acceleration.
Abstract models were becoming measurable reality.
In the 1990s, neither of us fully accounted for the scale of human delay. We assumed mitigation would begin in earnest. It did not.
By 2026, feedback loops that once seemed remote were unfolding in real time.
Old assumption:
Permafrost would thaw gradually over centuries to millennia, steadily releasing CO₂ and CH₄.
Observed reality:
Large regions are no longer reliably frozen. Peatlands and thawed soils are igniting — sometimes overwintering as “zombie fires” beneath snowpack — releasing greenhouse gases on compressed timescales.
This introduces significant uncertainties:
What is clear: release rates are faster than many early models anticipated. These feedbacks are no longer theoretical.
Separately, we had been discussing Greenland’s near-linear cumulative ice mass loss over the past 25 years — surprising in a system governed by nonlinear physics.
Then came an additional layer.
A 2026 University of Waterloo study found that windblown mineral dust from proglacial regions supplies phosphorus to surface algae on the Greenland ice sheet. The algae darken the ice, reduce albedo, and accelerate melt — a self-reinforcing loop.
Sidd added:
“And smoke and dust from Canadian wildfires — not to mention Russian ones.”
That connection reframed the system.
Regional feedbacks intertwine across continents.
I found myself thinking:
Glacial retreat alters weather patterns — rain, wind, atmospheric circulation —
transporting sediments and aerosols onto remaining ice sheets.
Surface darkening becomes biological terraforming.
Algae plumes and blooms spread.
Feedbacks cascade.
Not abstractly —
but visibly.
Now.
Canada and Russia’s wildfire carbon fallout adds an unmistakably international dimension.
Such strange interacting loops:
Black zombie fires.
Green unicorn algae.
The poetic framing reflects something real: systems interacting in ways that once seemed implausible but are now measurable.
If permafrost combustion and biologically enhanced albedo reduction are active, what other feedbacks are emerging?
The central challenge is not identifying one catastrophic event. It is understanding the network.
The nonlinear acceleration of interacting systems may be the defining feature of this century.
The question is no longer whether feedbacks exist.
It is how many are already active — and how tightly coupled they have become.