Global Tipping Points
The Art
The Science
What’s Alarming
A “tipping point” is a threshold at which a change can trigger a cascade of dramatic, unpredictable and possibly irreversible calamities in the climate. Examples often include melting of Greenland’s ice sheet, causing threatening rises in sea level, or an Arctic thaw that could release large amounts of highly dangerous methane emissions. “…Deep uncertainty exists with regard to the biogeochemical processes potentially triggered by climate change. Climate scientists have shown not only that tipping points exist but remain difficult to estimate with precision, but also that they could generate tipping cascades on other biogeochemical processes, as shown in [graph above].” The Green Swan, Central banking and financial stability in the age of climate change, Bolton, Despres et al, January 2020
“Harmful tipping points in the natural world pose some of the gravest threats faced by humanity. Their triggering will severely damage our planet’s life-support systems and threaten the stability of our societies…Here we define a tipping point as occurring when change in part of a system becomes self-perpetuating beyond a threshold, leading to substantial, widespread, frequently abrupt and often irreversible impact …” Global Tipping Points report led by Professor Tim Lenton from the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute with the support of more than 200 researchers from over 90 organisations in 26 countries.)
“Five important natural thresholds already risk being crossed, according to the Global Tipping Points report, and three more may be reached in the 2030s if the world heats 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial temperatures. …“The tipping points at risk include the collapse of big ice sheets in Greenlandand the West Antarctic, the widespread thawing of permafrost, the death of coral reefs in warm waters, and the collapse of one oceanic current in the North Atlantic.” The Guardian, Dec 5 2023 Earth on verge of five catastrophic climate tipping points, scientists warn.”
