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Climate tipping points threaten to cause global warming to spiral out of control

Climate change poses an existential threat to humanity, and avoiding catastrophic tipping points is of paramount importance. The global scientific community has long warned about the dire consequences of climate tipping points, which are thresholds in the Earth's climate system that, when crossed, can trigger abrupt and potentially irreversible changes. These tipping elements, such as the collapse of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation, the dieback of the Amazon rainforest, and the decay of the Greenland ice sheet, have the potential to radically alter the planet's ecosystems and disrupt human societies on an unprecedented scale 1 2 3.

Other potential tipping points include: the melting of Arctic sea ice, the loss of continental ice sheets, the thawing of permafrost, and the changes in ocean circulation patterns 2. The reduction of surface albedo (reflectiveness) from the melting of ice and snow warms the planet, and that warming causes further reductions in ice and snow cover, creating a feedback loop that accelerates the process 1 4.

As the planet continues to warm due to human-induced climate change, the risk of crossing these critical thresholds is becoming increasingly imminent 3. Scientists now anticipate a complete seasonal disappearance of Arctic sea ice in the coming decades 5, as well as significant losses from the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets during the next two centuries. These changes would not only raise global sea levels, but could also feedback to climate change by triggering the release of stored carbon, reducing surface albedo, and altering ocean heat uptake, further exacerbating the problem 1.

The magnitude, abruptness, and potential irreversibility of these tipping point events make them particularly challenging for human societies and other species to adapt to. Passing these tipping points can have cascading effects, as the tipping of one system can alter the likelihood of tipping another, creating a complex and potentially catastrophic web of interconnected changes.

In light of these grave risks, it is clear that climate tipping points must be avoided at all costs.

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Footnotes​

  1. Lenton, T. M., Abrams, J. F., Bartsch, A., Bathiany, S., Boulton, C. A., Buxton, J., Conversi, A., Cunliffe, A. M., Hebden, S., Lavergne, T., Poulter, B., Shepherd, A., Smith, T., Swingedouw, D., Winkelmann, R., & Boers, N. (2024, January). Remotely sensing potential climate change tipping points across scales. Nature Communications, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-44609-w ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. Greene, C. H., Baker, D. J., & Miller, D. (2010, March). A very inconvenient truth. Oceanography, 23(1), 214-218. https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2010.98 ↩ ↩2

  3. Lenton, T. M., Held, H., Kriegler, E., Hall, J. W., Lucht, W., Rahmstorf, S., & Schellnhuber, H. J. (2008, February). Tipping elements in the Earth's climate system. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(6), 1786-1793. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0705414105 ↩ ↩2

  4. Hansen, J. E., Sato, M., Simons, L., Nazarenko, L., Sangha, I., Kharecha, P., Zachos, J. C., von Schuckmann, K., Loeb, N. G., Osman, M., Jin, Q., Tselioudis, G., Jeong, E., Lacis, A. A., Rüedy, R., Russell, G. L., Cao, J., & Li, J. (2023, January). Global warming in the pipeline. Climate Science, 3(1), kgad008. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfclm/kgad008 ↩

  5. Kim, Y.-H., Min, S.-K., Gillett, N. P., Notz, D., & Malinina, E. (2023, June). Observationally-constrained projections of an ice-free Arctic even under a low emission scenario. Nature Communications, 14(1), 3139. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-38511-8 ↩