Tipping points occur with respect to individual or component systems. In a variable system, they’re the point of no return: For a canoe, it’s when the center of gravity leans past a certain point. For a fish in a pond, it’s when the oxygen level drops below what that fish can take in to survive (y’know, death). For a glacial lake, it’s when its natural ice dam can no longer hold the meltwater.
I understand what Bill Nye means when he says “there is not a tipping point” for climate change as a whole. A lot of subsystems are failing on individual time schedules. Each coral reef faces its individual mortality. Each mountainside can absorb so much water before it drops and buries the houses below. Large swaths of boreal forest that have burned will transition to entirely different non-forest ecosystems. Species go extinct with each disappearing habitat. People and companies and cities go bankrupt.
Some of the tipping points are much more consequential than others, of course. Because
of the amount the Arctic has warmed so far, we’ve effectively already broken the jet stream in the Northern Hemisphere (even if we can’t calculate exactly when we crossed that tipping point), and there’s no going back. Per Prof. Rahmstorf, the continuing slowing of the AMOC would inevitably collapse such that we can’t back out the change, and Europe’s new weather extremes will make them look back wistfully for today’s level of storms, fires and heat waves.
The frustration in that is palatable ~ we’ve been answering same dumb questions for 20 years
Tipping points occur with respect to individual or component systems. In a variable system, they’re the point of no return: For a canoe, it’s when the center of gravity leans past a certain point. For a fish in a pond, it’s when the oxygen level drops below what that fish can take in to survive (y’know, death). For a glacial lake, it’s when its natural ice dam can no longer hold the meltwater.
I understand what Bill Nye means when he says “there is not a tipping point” for climate change as a whole. A lot of subsystems are failing on individual time schedules. Each coral reef faces its individual mortality. Each mountainside can absorb so much water before it drops and buries the houses below. Large swaths of boreal forest that have burned will transition to entirely different non-forest ecosystems. Species go extinct with each disappearing habitat. People and companies and cities go bankrupt.
Some of the tipping points are much more consequential than others, of course. Because
of the amount the Arctic has warmed so far, we’ve effectively already broken the jet stream in the Northern Hemisphere (even if we can’t calculate exactly when we crossed that tipping point), and there’s no going back. Per Prof. Rahmstorf, the continuing slowing of the AMOC would inevitably collapse such that we can’t back out the change, and Europe’s new weather extremes will make them look back wistfully for today’s level of storms, fires and heat waves.