Tag Archives: tipping points

Understanding Sea Level Rise 6: SLR benefits of keeping warming below 1.5 degrees (IPCC & Pattyn)

If you do one about agriculture, you gotta do one for your sea level rise series too, we heard you say.

Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 28: If the Amazon goes, so may Africa’s rainforests

The Congolese rainforests are the world’s second largest remaining tropical rainforest expanse and a 60 gigatonne carbon store. Although climate models have a hard time predicting rainfall changes over the Congo Basin and despite a multi-decade drying trend, these forests … Continue reading →

Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 23: Amazon ‘tipping point’ is a sliding process, from +1C

In this article we try to quantify the Amazon rainforest climate tipping point, based on available scientific literature. We conclude there’s no real basin-wide threshold temperature to activate the forest-killing biome switch. Rather it seems to be a sliding process, … Continue reading →

Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 21: Amazon rainforest die-off starts in the South, models show

People who follow climate science will likely be well aware that the Amazon rainforest is particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic climate change – as the basin becomes increasingly prone to droughts under rising global temperatures. Much of the Amazon ecosystem, the … Continue reading →

Nature study: population growth and ecological crises drive Earth to tipping point

Nature population growth ecological tipping point EarthA group of scientists from around the world is warning that population growth, widespread destruction of natural ecosystems, and climate change may be driving Earth toward an irreversible change in the biosphere, a planet-wide tipping point that would have destructive consequences absent adequate preparation and mitigation.

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Study shows binary switches between forest, savanna, desert: macro-scale climate-biodiversity tipping points

Researchers of Wageningen University find in South America, Africa and Australia under climatic change forest, savanna and treeless systems don’t gradually phase across, but rather tip over.