“The phenomenon of rate-induced tipping is not restricted to climate systems. Using mathematical modelling, we observe similar effects in ecosystems and human-made systems.” HassanAlkhayuon (Joint Lead Author), School of Mathematical Sciences, University College Cork
Mathematicians from the University of Exeter, along with the University College York, have identified rapid rates of change in human and climate systems trigger dangerous tipping points. A rate-induced tipping point is not by a biome reaching a critical difference, such as decay at the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica, but rather the tipping point is started by how quickly the change occurs. The faster the change, the faster the tip unfolds.
From the University of Exeter Presser:
It is now widely understood that tipping points can occur when thresholds are crossed, such as the degree of global warming.
The new study instead highlights the dangers associated with rate-induced tipping, which is triggered not by a critical level of change but instead by how quickly that level is reached.
Once triggered, tipping points may lead to abrupt changes in natural and human systems including the reorganisation of large ocean circulation currents, extinction of ecosystem populations and blackouts on power grid networks.
Until now, critical thresholds have been assumed to be a point of no return, but the new study – published in the journal Earth System Dynamics – concludes that dangerous rates could trigger permanent shifts in human and natural systems before these critical levels are reached.
The research team say the rate of change in external forcing is often more important to control, than the peak change, if we are to avoid triggering tipping points.
“Whilst the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 6th Assessment Report rightly highlighted the urgency to limit global warming levels, it fell short of identifying the rate of warming as a key risk factor for climate tipping points” said joint lead author Dr Paul Ritchie, of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute and the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.
“This rate-induced tipping may be of even greater concern because of the unprecedented rates of global warming and heatwave intensity we are currently experiencing.”
To the media, which does not have a history of reporting on the planet's heating, this is how climate reporting is done. h/t Climate Crock
And the print media needs to do the same; the rich and powerful are murdering us. This piece from The Guardian shows how the climate dots connect with human systems.
George Monbiot writes:
With our food systems on the verge of collapse, it’s the plutocrats v life on Earth
We face an epochal, unthinkable prospect: of perhaps the two greatest existential threats – environmental breakdown and food system failure – converging, as one triggers the other.
There are plenty of signs, some of which I’ve tried to explain in the Guardian and, with a sense of rising urgency, in a presentation to parliament, suggesting that the global food system may not be far from its tipping point, for structural reasons similar to those that tanked the financial sector in 2008. As a system approaches a critical threshold, it’s impossible to say which external shock could push it over. Once a system has become fragile, and its resilience is not restored, it’s not a matter of if and how, but when.
So why isn’t this all over the front pages? Why, when governments know we’re facing existential risk, do they fail to act? Why is the Biden administration allowing enough oil and gas drilling to bust the US carbon budget five times over? Why is the UK government scrapping the £11.6bn international climate fund it promised? Why has Labour postponed its £28bn green prosperity fund, while Keir Starmer is reported to have remarked last week “I hate tree huggers” (a pejorative term for environmental campaigners)? Why are the Sun, the Mail, the Telegraph and the Express competing to attack every green solution that might help to prevent climate chaos? Why does everything else seem more important?
The underlying problem isn’t hard to grasp: governments have failed to break what the economist Thomas Piketty calls the patrimonial spiral of wealth accumulation. As a result, the rich have become ever richer, a process that seems to be accelerating. In 2021, for example, the ultra-rich captured almost two-thirds of all the world’s new wealth. Their share of national income in the UK has almost doubled since 1980, while in the US it’s higher than it was in 1820.
The richer a fraction of society becomes, the greater its political power, and the more extreme the demands it makes. The problem is summarised in one sentence in the resignation letter of the UK environment minister Zac Goldsmith: instead of attending a crucial environment summit, Rishi Sunak went to Rupert Murdoch’s summer party. We cannot work together to solve our common problems when great power is in the hands of so few.