Tipping Points That Could Unleash a Planetary Emergency Are Now Active, Scientists Warn

Several active 'tipping points' of irreversible change in the world's climate system threaten to unleash a global cascade of events that amounts to a planetary emergency, scientists warn.

The concept of tipping points was introduced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just over 20 years ago, but researchers now warn that already nine of these vulnerable environmental thresholds are in very real danger of being breached – and much sooner than was ever anticipated.

"A decade ago we identified a suite of potential tipping points in the Earth system, now we see evidence that over half of them have been activated," says climate system researcher Tim Lenton from the University of Exeter in the UK.

"The growing threat of rapid, irreversible changes means it is no longer responsible to wait and see. The situation is urgent and we need an emergency response."

In a new research comment, Lenton and an international team of climate scientists warn that these tipping points – which many assumed were low-probability risks that might only be dangerous if global temperatures rose 5°C above pre-industrial levels – are in fact becoming exceeded at increases of 1–2°C.

Read the Science Alert story by Peter Dockrill - “Tipping Points That Could Unleash a Planetary Emergency Are Now Active, Scientists Warn.”