Climate tipping points

In my coverage of Earth system science (pp. 42-46 of my book) I featured a cutting-edge study of tipping points that has just been updated in the journal Nature. It can be read online here, or a PDF version downloaded from the same URL. The core message of this article is that global warming must be limited to 1.5 °C, and that this requires an emergency response.

The authors review the various tipping points reproduced in Figure 3.3 in my book, both individually and as a “global cascade” to conclude that “the intervention time left to prevent tipping could already have shrunk towards zero, whereas the reaction time to achieve net zero emissions is 30 years at best. Hence we might already have lost control of whether tipping happens. A saving grace is that the rate at which damage accumulates from tipping — and hence the risk posed — could still be under our control to some extent.”