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https://www.sciencealert.com/earth-on-brink-of-five-catastrophic-climate-tipping-points-report-warns>
'It's now almost inevitable that 2023 will be the warmest year ever recorded by
humans, probably the warmest for at least 125,000 years.
Multiple temperature records were smashed with global average temperatures for
some periods well above 1.5°C. Antarctic sea ice loss is accelerating at
frightening rates along with many other indicators of rapid climate change.
Does this mean 2023 is the year parts of the climate tip into a much more
dangerous state?
Most people expect that if a system, like someone's body, an ecosystem, or part
of the climate system, becomes stressed, it'll respond fairly predictably –
double the pressure, double the impact, and so on.
This holds in many cases, but is not always true. Sometimes a system under
stress changes steadily (or "linearly") up to a point, but beyond that far
bigger or abrupt changes can be locked in.
An example of such "nonlinear" changes are "tipping points", which happen when
a system is pushed past a threshold beyond which change becomes
self-sustaining. This means that even if the original pressure eased off the
change would keep on going until the system reaches a sometimes completely
different state.
Think of rolling a boulder up a hill. This takes a lot of energy. If that
energy input is stopped then the ball will roll back down. But when the top of
the hill is reached and the boulder is balanced right at the very top, a tiny
push, perhaps even a gust of wind, can be enough to send it rolling down the
other side.
The climate system has many potential tipping points, such as ice sheets
disappearing or dense rainforests becoming significantly drier and more open.
It would be very difficult, effectively impossible, to recover these systems
once they go beyond a tipping point.
We along with 200 other scientists from around the world just published the new
Global Tipping Points Report at the COP28 UN climate talks in Dubai.
Our report sets out the science on the "negative" tipping points in the Earth
system that could harm both nature and people, as well as the potential
"positive" societal tipping points that could accelerate sustainability action.
Here we look at the key messages from report sections on tipping points in the
Earth system, their effects on people, and how to govern these changes.'
Via Rixty Dixet.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
