Nine crucial tipping points in Earth’s climate are now “active” and in danger of being crossed thanks to warming global temperatures caused by human activity, warn scientists in a commentary stated in Nature.
Vice News reported that the IPCC initially underestimated the risk of large-scale discontinuities in Earth’s natural processes. Nearly two decades ago, the panel estimated that it would take an average global temperature rise of about 5°C above pre-industrial levels to activate irreversible processes.
As reported in IPCC in contrast, conclude that those thresholds could be breached with increases of just 1.5 or 2°C. That range of elevated temperatures is extremely likely to be reached by 2050, even if nations participating in the Paris Climate Agreement meet their emissions goals.
According to Vice News, it is critical for governments, scientists, and citizens to continue monitoring known tipping points and looking out for new potential thresholds that could set off irreversible chain reactions. We are at an important inflection point at this time, as the Trump administration has been hostile to the global effort to decarbonize and has excluded the USA of the Paris Climate Agreement.
Diverse investment in climate research is incredibly important to climate scientists, it is even more essential for people of all backgrounds to demand efforts to avert, or even simply delay, the looming emergency.
