From blood to mud: medical tech that once studied viruses and tumours now analyses ancient mud and ice to look for environmental changes.
Articles on Climate tipping points
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An important ocean circulation system is slowing down faster than expected.
The beauty of positive tipping points is that it only takes a small change to make a big difference.
Ecosystems can behave surprisingly like magnets, say scientists.
The climate ‘flickered’ between wet and dry, before finally drying out for good.
Including a positive way to think about tipping points.
One positive change can lead to another.
Brazil’s rainforest is a massive carbon store, so its severe drought could be a tipping point for the global climate. Listen to The Conversation Weekly podcast.
Coral reefs are already being lost, and four other vital climate systems may tip soon.
Rising seas are pushing coastal ecosystems to the limit of endurance. Now international research reveals a “tipping point” will be reached if we allow more than 2 degrees of global warming.
The Pacific Ocean is entering the hot phase of its temperature cycle, an event that will turbo-charge global warming.
We ran computer programs that simulate ecosystems 70,000 times and the results are very worrying.
Temperature rise of more than 1°C pushes us towards irreversible climate tipping points, yet Earth is 1.2°C warmer than in pre-industrial times.
We are on a trajectory that takes Earth across thresholds humans have never experienced, into a climate where Antarctica’s ice shelves can no longer exist, leading to several metres of sea-level rise.
When Buckingham Palace announced the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September, the news overshadowed reporting of a critical review of climate tipping points, published in Science. Did you miss it?
Calling the Amazon “the lungs of the world” overlooks the forest’s vital role in the water cycle.
A recent paper suggested damaging climate tipping points could be closer than first thought.
New research suggests 75% of the rainforest has become less resilient to stress since the early 2000s.
About 60 per cent of monkeys, apes, lemurs, lorises and tarsiers are threatened with extinction. Climate change will only make it more difficult for them to survive.
Australia must treble its emissions reduction targets and reach net-zero emissions by 2035. Without this and other radical global action, the chance to hold warming to well below 2°C will pass us by.
Top contributors
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Emeritus Professor of Physical Geography, University of Southampton
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Researcher in Earth System Resilience, University of Sussex
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Professor of Sustainability, Bangor University
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Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Social-Ecological Resilience, University of Sheffield
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Professor of Climate Change, University of Exeter
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Emeritus Professor, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University
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Biólogo e pesquisador titular (Departamento de Ecologia), Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA)
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Assistant Director of the Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter
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PhD Candidate in Environmental Science, Concordia University
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Research Impact Fellow, Green Futures Solutions and Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter
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Professor in Earth Sciences, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
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PhD candidate | Paleoclimate, Adelaide University
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Professor of Biosphere-Atmosphere Interactions, University of Leeds
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Professor of Earth System Science, UCL
