By Daniel Brouse and Sidd Mukherjee
September 29, 2023
A look at three (3) of the multiple tipping points we appear to have breached and The Domino Effect:
- Mountain Glacier Loss
- Collapse of AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation)
- Amazon Rainforest Dieback
Crossing one tipping point would be alarming. For instance, crossing the tipping point for ‘mountain glacier loss‘ has immediate consequences: millions of people in Europe will be impacted by the lack of fresh water. Billions of people that live along coasts will be impacted by the saline infiltration and eventually by the submerging of their property. In September of 2022, UNESCO reported accelerated melting of glaciers in World Heritage sites, with glaciers in a third of sites set to disappear by 2050. In September of 2023, the GLAMOS glacier monitoring center found 10% of Swiss glaciers had disappeared in the last 2 years. They do not expect any Swiss glaciers will be left by 2050 no matter what actions are taken. If extreme measures are taken, they anticipate we may be able to save some polar glaciers.
This in and of itself should be alarming; however, it gets worse. Tipping points are parts of feedback loop systems. The ice–albedo feedback loop is an expression of the ability of surfaces to reflect sunlight (heat from the sun). Any loss of ice over a darker surface means the surface will absorb more heat and reflect less heat. This process makes the Earth warmer causing more loss of ice… which in turn causes more warming of the Earth. So, yes, the mountain ice tipping point is quite alarming for both its immediate impact as well as its self-sustaining growth to global warming; but wait, it gets more alarming. The increasing temperatures due to crossing a tipping point cause other tipping points to be toppled (The Domino Effect).
The tipping point for the collapse of AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) was thought to be centuries away, at the earliest. In July of 2023, the study Warning of a forthcoming collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation was published in the journal Nature Communications. “Here we provide statistical significance and data-driven estimators for the time of tipping. We estimate a collapse of the AMOC to occur around mid-century (2025-2095) under the current scenario of future emissions.” The collapse is likely to cause faster sea level rise on the east coast of the US, more severe storms in Europe, and increasing drought in the Sahel in Africa. “From the study of past climate, we know changes in the AMOC have been some of the most abrupt and impactful events in the history of climate,” said Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and world leading oceanographer. During the last Ice Age, winter temperatures changed by up to 10C within three years in some places. “We are dealing with a system that in some aspects is highly non-linear, so fiddling with it is very dangerous, because you may well trigger some surprises,” he said. “I wish I knew where this critical tipping point is, but that is unfortunately just what we don’t know. We should avoid disrupting the AMOC at all costs. It is one more reason why we should stop global warming as soon as possible.” A feedback loop created by the AMOC tipping point is disruption in weather systems and circulation that cause loss of naturally occurring carbon sinks. One scenario is desertification of the Amazon rainforest.
The tipping point / feedback loop problem is very complex (chaos theory) and exponentially alarming. A third tipping point appears to have been triggered by the summer of 2023 — Amazon Rainforest Dieback. The Amazon is often referred to as ‘the lungs of our planet.’ Not only does the Amazon suck in huge quantities of CO2 and breath out O2, but the Amazon soils also store huge amounts of CO2. The desertification of the Amazon would result in a release of the carbon as the soils disappeared.
1) much of July was spent at record temperatures +3C
2) the collapse of the Amazon rainforest is likely to happen between +2 – 4C. The collapse of the Amazon is expected to occur because of changing weather patterns and circulation that result in drought.
3) Brazil set up a task force for “unprecedented drought in the Amazon”
Low river levels and hotter waters have killed masses of fish seen floating on river surfaces, contaminating the drinking water, Environment Minister Marina Silva said. “We have a very worrying situation. This record drought has disrupted river transport routes (dropping 30 cm / day) threatening food and water shortages, and a large fish mortality is already beginning.” This was the effect of a periodic El Niño mixing with changes in weather patterns brought by global warming. “We are seeing a collision of two phenomena, one natural which is El Niño and the other a phenomenon produced by humans, which is the change in the Earth’s temperature.” Worsened by climate change, this combination has caused drought not seen before in the Amazon and “is incomparably stronger and could happen more frequently.”
Feedback loops and tipping points are parts of an equation that determine the rate of acceleration in climate change.. Triggering these tipping points results in the CO2 stored in nature to be released. Though we do not know how much carbon is stored in nature, it would be reasonable to assume that the temperature could be pushed from 3 degrees to 6 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Humans cannot thrive above a rise of 1.5 degrees. Humans cannot survive if the temperature rises 6 degrees.
Climate Change Tipping Points