Author: Kate Williams
More infoThat’s the reality we’re facing with the Earth’s major systems, including Atlantic Ocean currents, the Amazon and polar ice sheets, showing alarming signs of instability. Crossing these climate tipping points could disrupt weather patterns, flood coastal cities, threaten food and water supplies and cause massive biodiversity loss.
But just how close are we to disaster on this scale?
It’s a question the EU-funded ClimTip project aims to answer. They’re working to deepen our understanding of these critical thresholds so we can predict Earth systems tipping and act before it’s too late.
To learn more, we caught up with Project Coordinator Dr Sebastian Bathiany and Head of Communications Kuat Abeshev.
Several major components of the Earth system are showing signs of declining stability.
Observational data suggest that the Greenland Ice Sheet, the Amazon Rainforest, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), and the South American monsoon have all become less resilient over the past century. This means they are edging closer to critical thresholds where small additional changes in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or land use could trigger abrupt and potentially irreversible shifts.
These findings underscore the urgency of reducing GHGs emissions and land degradation to prevent crossing tipping points.
Large-scale tipping events could have profound consequences.
If Atlantic ocean currents collapse, it’s likely to lead to substantial cooling in Northern Europe and disrupt monsoon systems in West Africa, India and Southeast Asia, threatening the food and water security of billions.
Amazon dieback would cause large-scale biodiversity loss and release vast amounts of CO2, amplifying global warming. Melting ice sheets would cause long-term sea-level rise, affecting coastal communities globally.
The magnitude and scale of these effects highlight the importance of integrating tipping point risks into mitigation strategies and accelerating efforts to reach net-zero emissions.
Ecosystems, especially ones like the Amazon and Arctic tundra, are under intense pressure from combined climate and land-use changes.
Communities in low-lying coastal areas, such as Bangladesh and small island states, are highly vulnerable to sea-level rise from melting ice sheets.
Regions dependent on monsoon rains, including West Africa, South Asia and parts of South America, are at risk from potential disruptions to precipitation patterns caused by a substantial decline in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). An AMOC decline could also lead to strong cooling in North-Western Europe.
All these areas are likely to experience disproportionate impacts if tipping points are crossed.
Statistical indicators offer the possibility of monitoring resilience loss before a tipping event occurs. Key indicators include increasing variability in system behaviour, slower recovery from disturbances and physical changes in feedback dynamics. For example, more intense fires, shifts in vegetation or altered rainfall.
Early warning systems can monitor these indicators using satellite data, long-term climate records and real-time environmental sensing. By integrating diverse data streams and advancing predictive modelling, we can develop tools to alert decision-makers when systems approach critical thresholds.
There’s already evidence showing that all of the vulnerable Earth system components–like the Amazon rainforest, Atlantic currents and ice sheets–are becoming less resilient.
Tipping points are a research topic with very large uncertainties. Scientists are not certain whether tipping events can be triggered by human activity or at which global warming levels they would occur. Other major uncertainties also include the speed at which tipping could occur and the interactions between different tipping elements.
Current Earth system models may underestimate risks due to a "stability bias," failing to fully capture complex dynamics and feedbacks between the atmosphere, oceans, ice-sheets and land. Better understanding of social-ecological feedback and regional impacts is also needed in order to prevent tipping events, or to cope with their consequences.
Reducing these research gaps is essential for more reliable risk assessments and informed policymaking.
ClimTip is a multidisciplinary international research project funded under the Horizon Europe programme. We’re dedicated to improving the detection and prediction of tipping points through modelling, data analysis and stakeholder engagement.
We focus on four key systems: AMOC, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and the Amazon rainforest. Our work involves refining Earth system models to better represent feedback and developing early warning indicators. We’re also exploring socio-economic pathways to resilience.
By developing early warning systems and conducting comprehensive assessments, we aim to generate information that helps to mitigate the impacts of these tipping points on ecosystems, societies and economies worldwide.
Our work is crucial for fostering global awareness and collaboration in addressing the urgent challenges posed by climate tipping points. By connecting scientific insights with policy and public awareness, we’re supporting timely, evidence-based climate action.
Climate tipping points are not just a scientific concern; they are a societal one. The potential for abrupt changes underscores the need for precautionary climate policies and deep transformations in how we develop our societies and interact with nature.
While uncertainties remain, the risks are too great to ignore. These uncertainties also represent opportunity, however. By acting decisively now, we still have the chance to avoid the worst outcomes and build a more resilient future.
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