Runaway climate change

In climate science, a tipping point is a critical threshold that, when crossed, leads to large and often irreversible changes in the climate system. If tipping points are crossed, they are likely to have severe impacts on human society. Tipping behaviour is found across the climate system, in ecosystems, ice sheets, and the circulation of the ocean and atmosphere.

Tipping points are often, but not necessarily, abrupt. For example, with average global warming somewhere between 0.8 and 3 °C, the Greenland ice sheet passes a tipping point and is doomed, but the melt would take place over millennia.

Tipping points are possible at today's global warming of just over 1 °C above preindustrial times, and highly probable above 2 °C of global warming. The geological record shows many abrupt changes that suggest tipping points may have been crossed in ancient times. It is possible that some tipping points are close to being crossed or have already been crossed, like those of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, the Amazon rainforest and warm-water coral reefs. A danger is that if the tipping point in one system is crossed, this could cause a cascade of other tipping points, leading to severe impacts.

Definition

The sixth report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in 2021, defines a tipping point as a "critical threshold beyond which a system reorganizes, often abruptly and/or irreversibly". It can be brought about by a small disturbance causing a disproportionately large change in the system. One set of definitions of "tipping points" also requires self-reinforcing feedbacks, which could lead to changes in the climate system irreversible on a human timescale. For any particular climate component, the shift from one state to a new stable state may take many decades or centuries. In ecosystems and in social systems, a tipping point can trigger a ''regime shift'', a major systems reorganisation into a new stable state.

The 2019 IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate defines a tipping point as: "A level of change in system properties beyond which a system reorganises, often in a non-linear manner, and does not return to the initial state even if the drivers of the change are abated. For the climate system, the term refers to a critical threshold at which global or regional climate changes from one stable state to another stable state.".

Geological record

The geological record shows that there have been abrupt changes in the climate system that indicate ancient tipping points. For instance, the Dansgaard–Oeschger events during the last ice age were periods of abrupt warming (within decades) in Greenland and Europe, that may have involved the abrupt changes in major ocean currents. During the deglaciation in the early Holocene, sea level rise was not smooth, but rose abruptly during meltwater pulses. The monsoon in North Africa saw abrupt changes on decadal timescales during the African humid period. This period, spanning from 15,000 to 5,000 years ago, also ended suddenly in a drier state.

Tipping elements

Scientists have identified many elements in the climate system which may have tipping points. in the early 2000s the IPCC began considering the possibility of tipping points. At that time the IPCC concluded they would only be likely in the event of global warming of 4 °C or more above preindustrial times. As of 2021 tipping points are considered to have significant probability at today's warming level of just over 1 °C, with high probability above 2 °C of global warming, and it is possible that some tipping points are close to being crossed or have already been crossed, like those of the ice sheets in West Antarctic and Greenland, warm-water coral reefs, and the Amazon rainforest. As of September 2022, nine core tipping elements and seven regional impact tipping elements were identified. Out of those, one regional and three core climate elements are estimated to likely pass a tipping point if global warming reaches 1.5 °C, namely the Greenland ice sheet collapse, the West Antarctic ice sheet collapse, tropical coral reef die off, and the boreal permafrost abrupt thaw. Two further tipping points are forecast as likely if warming continues to approach 2 °C : Barents sea ice abrupt loss, and the Labrador sea subpolar gyre collapse.

Greenland ice sheet disintegration

The Greenland ice sheet is the second largest ice sheet in the world, and is three times the size of the American state of Texas. It holds enough water, that if completely melted, could raise sea levels globally by 7.2 metres. Due to global warming, the ice sheet is melting at an accelerating rate, adding almost 1 mm to global sea levels every year. Around half of the ice loss occurs via surface melting, and the remainder occurs at the base of the ice sheet where the ice sheet touches the sea, by calving (breaking off) icebergs from its margins.

The Greenland ice sheet has a tipping point because of the melt-elevation feedback. Surface melting reduces the height of the ice sheet. As air at a lower altitude is warmer, the ice sheet is then exposed to warmer temperatures, accelerating the melt. A 2021 analysis of sub-glacial sediment at the bottom of a 1.4 km Greenland ice core finds that the Greenland ice sheet melted away at least once during the last million years, and therefore strongly suggests that its tipping point is below the 2.5 °C maximum positive temperature excursion over that period. There is some evidence that the Greenland ice sheet is losing stability, and getting close to a tipping point.

West Antarctic ice sheet disintegration

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is a large ice sheet in Antarctica; in places more than 4 kilometres thick. It sits on bedrock mostly below sea level. As such, it is in contact with the heat from the ocean which makes it vulnerable to fast and irreversible ice loss. A tipping point could be reached if thinning or collapse of the WAIS's ice shelves triggers a feedback loop that leads to rapid and irreversible loss of its ice into the ocean. If completely melted, the ice sheet would contribute around 3.3 metres of sea level rise.

Ice loss from the WAIS is accelerating. The paleo record suggests that during the past few hundred thousand years, the WAIS largely disappeared in response to similar levels of warming and emission scenarios projected for the next few centuries.

Like with the other ice sheets, there is a counteracting negative feedback - greater warming also intensifies the effects of climate change on the water cycle, which result in an increased precipitation over the ice sheet in the form of snow during the winter, which would freeze on the surface, and this increase in the surface mass balance (SMB) counteracts some fraction of the ice loss. In the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, it was suggested that this effect could potentially overpower increased ice loss under the higher levels of warming and result in small net ice gain, but by the time of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, improved modelling had proven that the glacier breakup would consistently accelerate at a faster rate.

North Subpolar Gyre

East Antarctic ice sheet disintegration

East Antarctic ice sheet is the largest and thickest ice sheet on Earth, with the maximum thickness of 4,800 m. A complete disintegration would raise the global sea levels by 53.3 m, but this may not occur until global warming of 10 degrees Celsius, while the loss of two-thirds of its volume may require at least 6 degrees of warming to trigger. Its melt would also occur over a longer timescale than the loss of any other ice on the planet, taking no less than 10,000 years to finish. However, the subglacial basin portions of the East Antarctic ice sheet may be vulnerable to tipping at lower levels of warming. The Wilkes Basin is of particular concern, as it holds enough ice to raise sea levels by about 3 to 4 metres.

Amazon rainforest dieback

The Amazon rainforest is the largest tropical rainforest in the world. It is twice as big as India and spans nine countries in South America. It produces around half of its own rainfall by recycling moisture through evaporation and transpiration as air moves across the forest. When forest is lost via climate change (droughts and fires) or deforestation, there will be less rain and more trees will die. Eventually, large parts of the rainforest may die off and transform into a dry savanna landscape. In 2022, a study reported that the rainforest has been losing resilience since the early 2000s. Resiliency is measured by recovery-time from short-term perturbations. This delayed return to equilibrium of the rainforest is termed ''critical slowing down''. The observed loss of resilience reinforces the theory that the rainforest is approaching a critical transition.

Permafrost thaw

Perennially frozen ground, or permafrost, covers large fractions of land – mainly in Siberia, Alaska, northern Canada and the Tibetan plateau – and can be up to a kilometre thick. Subsea permafrost up to 100 metres thick also occurs on the sea floor under part of the Arctic Ocean. This frozen ground holds vast amounts of carbon from plants and animals that died and decomposed over thousands of years. Scientists believe there is nearly twice as much carbon in permafrost than is present in Earth's atmosphere. As the climate warms and the permafrost begins to thaw, carbon dioxide and methane are released into the atmosphere. With higher temperatures, microbes become active and decompose the biological material in the permafrost. This could happen rapidly, or over longer timespans, and the loss would be irreversible. Because and methane are both greenhouse gases, they act as a self-reinforcing feedback on permafrost melt.

Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), also known as the Gulf Stream System, is a large system of ocean currents. It is driven by differences in the density of water; colder and more salty water is heavier than warmer fresh water. The AMOC acts as a conveyor belt, sending warm surface water from the tropics north, and carrying cold fresh water back south. As warm water flows northwards, some evaporates which increases salinity. It also cools when it is exposed to cooler air. Cold, salty water is more dense and slowly begins to sink. Several kilometres below the surface, cold, dense water begins to move south. Increased rainfall and the melting of ice due to global warming dilutes the salty surface water, and warming further decreases its density. The lighter water is less able to sink, slowing down the circulation.

Theory, simplified models, and reconstructions of abrupt changes in the past suggest the AMOC has a tipping point. If freshwater input from melting glaciers reaches a certain threshold, it could collapse into a state of reduced flow. Even after melting stops, the AMOC may not return to its current state. It is unlikely that the AMOC will tip in the 21st century, but it may do so before 2300 if greenhouse gas emissions are very high. A weakening of 24% to 39% is expected depending on greenhouse emissions, even without tipping behaviour. If the AMOC does shut down, a new stable state could emerge that lasts for thousands of years, possibly triggering other tipping points.

In 2021, a study which used a "primitive" finite-difference ocean model estimated that AMOC collapse could be invoked by a sufficiently fast increase in ice melt even if it never reached the common thresholds for tipping obtained from slower change. Thus, it implied that the AMOC collapse is more likely than what is usually estimated by the complex and large-scale climate models. Another 2021 study found early-warning signals in a set of AMOC indices, suggesting that the AMOC may be close to tipping. However, it was contradicted by another study published in the same journal the following year, which found a "largely stable" AMOC which had so far not been affected by climate change beyond its own natural variability. Two more studies published in 2022 have also suggested that the modelling approaches commonly used to evaluate AMOC appear to overestimate the risk of its collapse.

Arctic sea ice

Arctic sea ice was once identified as a potential tipping element. The loss of sunlight-reflecting sea ice during summer exposes the (dark) ocean, which would warm. Arctic sea ice cover is likely to melt entirely under even relatively low levels of warming, and it was hypothesized that this could eventually transfer enough heat to the ocean to prevent sea ice recovery even if the global warming is reversed. Modelling now shows that this heat transfer during the Arctic summer does not overcome the cooling and the formation of new ice during the Arctic winter. As such, the loss of Arctic ice during the summer is not a tipping point for as long as the Arctic winter remains cool enough to enable the formation of new Arctic sea ice. However, if the higher levels of warming prevent the formation of new Arctic ice even during winter, then this change may become irreversible. Consequently, Arctic Winter Sea Ice is included as a potential tipping point in a 2022 assessment.

Additionally, the same assessment argued that while the rest of the ice in the Arctic Ocean may recover from a total summertime loss during the winter, ice cover in the Barents Sea may not reform during the winter even below 2 degrees of warming. This is because the Barents Sea is already the fastest-warming part of the Arctic: in 2021-2022 it was found that while the warming within the Arctic Circle has already been nearly four times faster than the global average since 1979, Barents Sea warmed up to seven times faster than the global average. This tipping point matters because of the decade-long history of research into the connections between the state of Barents-Kara Sea ice and the weather patterns elsewhere in Eurasia.

Coral reef die-off

Around 500 million people around the world depend on coral reefs for food, income, tourism and coastal protection. Since the 1980s, this is being threatened by the increase in sea surface temperatures which is triggering mass bleaching of coral, especially in sub-tropical regions. A sustained ocean temperature spike of 1 °C above average is enough to cause bleaching. Under heat stress, corals expel the small colourful algae which live in their tissues, which causes them to turn white. The algae, known as zooxanthellae, have a symbiotic relationship with coral such that without them, the corals slowly die. After these zooxanthellae have disappeared, the corals are vulnerable to a transition towards a seaweed-dominated ecosystem, making it very difficult to shift back to a coral-dominated ecosystem. The IPCC estimates that by the time temperatures have risen to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial times, between 70% and 90% of coral reefs that exist today will disappear; and that if the world warms by 2 °C, they will become extremely rare.

Mountain glaciers

Mountain glaciers are the largest repository of land-bound ice after the Greenland and the Antarctica ice sheets, and they are also undergoing melting as the result of climate change. A glacier tipping point is when it enters a disequilibrium state with the climate and will melt away unless the temperatures go down. Examples include glaciers of the North Cascade Range, where even in 2005 67% of the glaciers observed were in disequilibrium and will not survive the continuation of the present climate, or the French Alps, where The Argentière and Mer de Glace glaciers are expected to disappear completely by end of the 21st century if current climate trends persist.

The absolute largest amount of glacier ice is located in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, which is colloquially known as the Earth's "Third Pole" as the result. It is believed that one third of that ice will be lost by 2100 even if the warming is limited to 1.5 °C, while the "intermediate" and "severe" climate change scenarios ( RCP 4.5 and 8.5) are likely to lead to the losses of 50% and >67% of the region's glaciers over the same timeframe. Glacier melt is projected to accelerate regional river flows until the amount of meltwater peaks around 2060, going into an irreversible decline afterwards. Since regional precipitation will continue to increase even as the glacier meltwater contribution declines, annual river flows are only expected to diminish in the western basins where contribution from the monsoon is low: however, irrigation and hydropower generation would still have to adjust to greater interannual variability and lower pre-monsoon flows in all of the region's rivers.

Sahel greening

Boreal forest biome shift

During the last quarter of the twentieth century, the zone of latitude occupied by taiga experienced some of the greatest temperature increases on Earth. Winter temperatures have increased more than summer temperatures. In summer, the daily low temperature has increased more than the daily high temperature. It has been hypothesized that the boreal environments have only a few states which are stable in the long term - a treeless tundra/steppe, a forest with >75% tree cover and an open woodland with ~20% and ~45% tree cover. Thus, continued climate change would be able to force at least some of the presently existing taiga forests into one of the two woodland states or even into a treeless steppe - but it could also shift tundra areas into woodland or forest states as they warm and become more suitable for tree growth.

These trends were first detected in the Canadian boreal forests in the early 2010s, and summer warming had also been shown to increase water stress and reduce tree growth in dry areas of the southern boreal forest in central Alaska and portions of far eastern Russia. In Siberia, the taiga is converting from predominantly needle-shedding larch trees to evergreen conifers in response to a warming climate. Subsequent research in Canada found that even in the forests where biomass trends did not change, there was a substantial shift towards the deciduous broad-leaved trees with higher drought tolerance over the past 65 years, and a Landsat analysis of 100,000 undisturbed sites found that the areas with low tree cover became greener in response to warming, but tree mortality (browning) became the dominant response as the proportion of existing tree cover increased. A 2018 study of the seven tree species dominant in the Eastern Canadian forests found that while 2 °C warming alone increases their growth by around 13% on average, water availability is much more important than temperature and further warming of up to 4 °C would result in substantial declines unless matched by increases in precipitation.

A 2021 paper had confirmed that the boreal forests are much more strongly affected by climate change than the other forest types in Canada and projected that most of the eastern Canadian boreal forests would reach a tipping point around 2080 under the RCP 8.5 scenario, which represents the largest potential increase in anthropogenic emissions. Another 2021 study projected that under the "moderate" SSP2-4.5 scenario, boreal forests would experience a 15% worldwide increase in biomass by the end of the century, but this would be more than offset by the 41% biomass decline in the tropics. In 2022, the results of a 5-year warming experiment in North America had shown that the juveniles of tree species which currently dominate the southern margins of the boreal forests fare the worst in response to even 1.5°C or +3.1 °C of warming and the associated reductions in precipitation. While the temperate species which would benefit from such conditions are also present in the southern boreal forests, they are both rare and have slower growth rates.

Equatorial stratocumulus clouds

Formerly considered tipping elements

The possibility that the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a tipping element had attracted attention in the past. Normally strong winds blow west across the South Pacific Ocean from South America to Australia. Every two to seven years, the winds weaken due to pressure changes and the air and water in the middle of the Pacific warms up, causing changes in wind movement patterns around the globe. This known as El Niño and typically leads to droughts in India, Indonesia and Brazil, and increased flooding in Peru. In 2015/2016, this caused food shortages affecting over 60 million people. El Niño-induced droughts may increase the likelihood of forest fires in the Amazon. The threshold for tipping was estimated to be between 3.5 and 7 °C of global warming in 2016. After tipping, the system would be in a more permanent El Niño state, rather than oscillating between different states. This has happened in Earth's past, in the Pliocene

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