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12/06/2023 – Tipping points pose some of the biggest risks to our planet’s life-support systems and the stability of our societies. In an unprecedented effort by the scientific community, researchers have now published a comprehensive report on Earth system tipping points and their potential impacts and opportunities for societal change. More than 200 scientists from around the world contributed to the ‘Global Tipping Points Report’. The report with more than 500 pages provides an authoritative guide to the state of knowledge on tipping points, explores opportunities for accelerating much needed transformations, and outlines options for a new governance of tipping point risks and opportunities.
“This report is the most comprehensive review to date on tipping points in the Earth System,” explains Sina Loriani of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), one of the report’s lead authors. “Crossing these thresholds may trigger fundamental and sometimes abrupt changes that could irreversibly determine the fate of essential parts of our Earth system for the coming hundreds or thousands of years. These tipping point risks are potentially disastrous, and should be taken very seriously from a precautionary perspective on current and future generations, despite the remaining uncertainties.”
5 tipping systems currently at risk, 3 more at risk with global warming breaching 1.5°C
Five major tipping systems are already at risk of crossing tipping points at the current levels of global warming, the researchers find in the report: The Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets, the North Atlantic subpolar gyre circulation, warm-water coral reefs
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Read the full post at PIK Postdam.
