December 6, 2024
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Why ‘tipping point’ is the wrong way to talk about climate change
New paper warns that the concept of ‘tipping points’ does little to help the public and policymakers take action on climate change
Melt water drips from ice on an exposed section of the Aletsch Glacier near Bettmeralp, Switzerland, August 22, 2019.
Climate Wire | Antarctic ice continues to decline. In the Arctic, permafrost is irreversibly thawing. The cessation of the huge Atlantic current.
Scientists have warned that these and other “tipping points” in the Earth’s climate system are in store if global temperatures continue to rise unabated. However, there remains great uncertainty about when and how the Earth will cross these dangerous thresholds.
And without clearer public communication about what exactly a tipping point is and what can be done to prevent it, the entire concept may be of little use when it comes to accelerating climate action. There may not be.
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That’s the warning laid out in a new perspective paper published Tuesday in the journal Nature Climate Change by a group of scientists, policy experts and communications experts.. Tipping points have captured the public’s imagination for years, they argue, but it’s unclear whether the concept has sparked meaningful policy change.
Part of this is due to widespread confusion about what a tipping point actually is, the paper suggests.
Early scientific literature on this topic presented the idea that certain aspects of Earth’s climate system may have physical limits. And once the point of no return is crossed, these systems enter a death spiral of unstoppable and irreversible change.
For example, research shows that enough warming and drought in the Amazon could tip the ecosystem into an uncontrollable shift from lush rainforest to dry grassland.
However, as the concept has grown in popularity over the years, researchers have begun applying the tipping point framework to a variety of other scientific and social systems. Papers are beginning to appear suggesting tipping points in everything from energy pricing systems to human diets.
The authors suggest that uncertainty about possible climate tipping points is another source of public confusion.
The United Nations’ leading authority on climate science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has warned of a number of possible tipping points in the Earth’s climate system. But some are more likely than others, and many are shrouded in uncertainty. In other words, scientists don’t know how close we are to defeating them.
This makes it difficult to communicate the seriousness of tipping point threats and encourage short-term actions to prevent them.
If scientists knew for sure that the Antarctic ice sheet would experience rapid and uncontrollable melting if global warming increased by just 1.5 degrees, policymakers would have to take measures to keep temperatures below that threshold. There may be an increased tendency to take emergency measures.
However, almost all global tipping point thresholds involve wide uncertainty about when, or even if, it will actually occur.
Rather, more concrete and immediate climate emergencies, such as extreme weather events that are worsening around the world as temperatures rise, are more likely to create a greater sense of crisis among policymakers and the public. the authors argued.
That doesn’t mean tipping points can’t still be a useful concept in public messaging about climate change, the authors added. But scientists need to communicate their definitions and uncertainties more clearly.
That’s because climate tipping points remain a major threat, even if their precise thresholds are still uncertain.
A major report last year, with contributions from more than 200 scientists, warned of 26 possible tipping points on Earth, affecting systems ranging from ice sheets to tropical clouds.
This is an issue that urgently requires further research and understanding, the report warns.
“We know very well that the threat of Earth system tipping points requires an urgent response. In fact, our best models may be underestimating tipping point risks. There is.” “The world is flying almost blind to this huge threat.”
Reprinted from E&E News Published with permission of POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2024. E&E News provides news that matters to energy and environment professionals.
