Climate tipping points
Context:
- Recently the Global Tipping Points Report which 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, was published.
- The Global Tipping Points report identified and examined more than 25 climate tipping points.
- The report revealed that nearly five major tipping points are already at risk of being crossed due to warming right now and three more are threatened in the 2030s as the world exceeds 1.5C global warming.
- The five major tipping points are the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, permafrost regions, coral reef die-offs and the Labrador Sea and subpolar gyre circulation.
- As of now, the Earth has become 1.1 degree Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels and the tipping points at risk are the collapse of big ice sheets in Greenland and 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.
- But ince the planet passes the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold, tipping points, including the death of boreal forests, mangroves, and seagrass meadows, will potentially be breached.
- The report also added that crossing these tipping points could have a catastrophic impact on societies with the potential to escalate violent conflicts, mass displacement and financial instability.
About:
- According to the IPCC which stands for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tipping points are critical thresholds in a system that when exceeded can lead to a significant change in the state of the system often with an understanding that the change is irreversible.
- In general climate tipping points are elements of the Earth system in which small changes can kick off reinforcing loops that ‘tip’ a system from one stable state into a profoundly different state.
- To give an example a rise in global temperatures because of fossil fuel burning, further down the line, triggers a change like a rainforest becoming a dry savannah.
- This change is actually propelled by self-perpetuating feedback loops, even if what was driving the change in the system stops.
- The system which is the forest in this case may remain ‘tipped’ even if the temperature falls below the threshold again.
- The crossing of one tipping point could lead to the triggering of further tipping points.
- This leads to unleashing a domino-effect chain reaction and could also lead to some places becoming less suitable for sustaining human and natural systems.
- Like for example the Arctic is warming almost four times faster than anywhere else in the world (which is known as arctic amplification) accelerating ice melt from the Greenland Ice Sheet (and the melting of Arctic sea ice).
- This thing in turn could be slowing down the ocean’s circulation of heat which is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and in turn impacting the monsoon system over South America.
- Monsoon changes across the globe may be contributing to the rising frequency of droughts over the Amazon rainforest, lowering its carbon storage capacity and intensifying climate warming.
- The impacts of such a ‘tipping cascade,’ crossing multiple climate tipping points could be more widespread and severe.
How to avoid breaching of tipping points:
- The best possible way to limit the risk of passing climate tipping points is to curb the greenhouse gases.
- According to the latest data by C3S and the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere reached the highest levels ever recorded in the atmosphere in 2023.
- While carbon dioxide concentrations in 2023 were 2.4 parts per million (ppm) higher than in 2022, methane concentrations increased by 11 parts per billion (ppb).
- The Global Tipping Points Report noted that Global governance is at present inadequate to minimise tipping point threats and to do so equitably.
- The report also added that by the time an adequate global emergency action would be implemented, some of the climate tipping points may still be crossed.
