From the “no tipping points observed, though many have been predicted” department and Rutgers University
Rutgers and Harvard scientists lay out strategy for investigating societal consequences
The phrase “tipping point” passed its own tipping point and caught fire after author Malcolm Gladwell’s so-named 2000 book. It’s now frequently used in discussions about climate change, but what are “climate tipping points”? And what do they mean for society and the economy?
Scientists at Rutgers University and Harvard University tackle the terminology and outline a strategy for investigating the consequences of climate tipping points in a study published online today in the journal Earth’s Future.
“I hear from a lot of people in the general public who wonder whether we’ve passed a tipping point with respect to the climate, but frequently they don’t know precisely what the term means,” said Robert E. Kopp, the study’s lead author and an associate professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Rutgers. “And that’s on the scientific community. Oftentimes, we use the term in a way that doesn’t quite jive with popular understanding.”
“In the climate science world, the consequences of what are sometimes called tipping points may take decades or centuries to play out,” Kopp added. “By contrast, many people think, ‘OK, we’ve crossed a tipping point now, something is going to happen quickly.’ That’s more consistent with the way the term was popularized, before it was adopted by the climate science community, and that’s a terminological confusion we wanted to clarify.”
The authors recommend using the phrase “climatic tipping elements” to describe portions of the climate system that may be abruptly committed to major shifts as a result of the changing climate. Arctic sea ice, the Antarctic ice sheet, and the Amazon rainforest are examples of elements to which the term may apply. They also draw a connection to “social tipping elements,” such as public opinion and policy changes, technological or behavioral changes, mass migrations and conflict-development traps.
Social tipping elements may be influenced by climate change. And some climate tipping elements and social tipping elements may have the ability to trigger economic shocks – large, rapid losses in a country’s economic capacity. Civil wars, which are made more frequent by temperature extremes, are an example of a social tipping event associated with economic shocks.
But not all climate tipping elements play out quickly enough to have major economic impacts in time frames relevant to policy or economic decisions.
“We wanted to clarify the difference between a ‘tipping point’ the way that Malcolm Gladwell uses the term and a ‘critical threshold’ in a system, which may or may not lead to a quick change,” Kopp said. “You cross a critical threshold with respect to the Antarctic ice sheet, which we may have already crossed, and we may be committed to multiple meters of sea level rise, but those may play out over centuries.”
Study authors include Rachael L. Shwom, an associate professor in the Department of Human Ecology at Rutgers; Gernot Wagner, a research associate at Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Jiacan Yuan, a post-doctoral fellow in the Kopp-led Rutgers Earth System Science & Policy Lab.
“We’re worried about mass migration or increases in poverty and civil conflicts that lead to destabilization of societies following climate change,” Shwom said. “That certainly will increase suffering among people.”
The literature on the costs of climate change often links climatic “tipping points” and large economic shocks that are often called “catastrophes,” according to the study. The phrase “tipping points” in this context can be misleading because the subsequent changes can be either abrupt or slow.
If the lag between crossing a critical threshold and an impact is too long, we may not notice until it’s too late to do anything about it, Kopp said. If we notice that we’ve done something wrong, it may be possible to intervene and limit the damage.
The authors propose a research agenda that advances the study of the social and economic consequences of climatic tipping elements, social tipping elements sensitive to climate change, and climate-economic shocks.
Shwom wants to look into any cases where it looks like social tipping elements have been tipped and the underlying conditions.
“There’s been a lot of attention paid to climate tipping points where some major change in the climate happens, but this study gave me a chance to think about how social systems will respond to climate change,” she said. “Social system tipping points can worsen or reduce the impacts of climate change.”
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“Oftentimes, we use the term in a way that doesn’t quite jive with popular understanding.”
Should someone who doesn’t know the difference between “jive” and “jibe” be defining “tipping point?”
Jive means informal language that includes many slang terms; also deceptive or foolish talk.
Jibe means to agree with (second definition to the nautical term).
I like the cut of your jibe.
I noticed that, too, and thought that at least the proofreader should have included a [sic]. But then I thought, “Silly me. The ability to speak your own language is just so 20th Century.” I’ll bet a thousand bucks that same person also says things like, “After I explained it all to she and Greg, everything was OK.” Any takers?
All pedantry aside, everyone knows the one true meaning of the word “jive:”
The real tipping point coming at us slowly is the acceptance of online learning models and content at the expense of over priced, over opinionated, and over rated institutions of higher education. The volume-based publication system in hiring and promotions will go down with them.
Tipping points are unlikely as long as the current temperature doesn’t exceed the temperatures achieved in the last ten thousand years. If it was warmer during the Holocene climate optimum, the Roman Warm Period, and the Medieval Warm Period, and they didn’t experience a tipping point, why would we expect a tipping point with our current temperatures?
Michael Mann had to kill the MWP so the fiction of a tipping point could be maintained.
These people are do up their own backsides it is unbelievable. A ludicrous paper agonising over what tipping point should mean. Speechless
The first time I heard an adult (non school teacher) talk seriously about global warming was in the late 1990s. My dad had just watched a CBC ‘documentary’ (aka propaganda), and told me that indeed, we had already crossed the tipping point; Siberian tundra was now melting, releasing heaps of CO2 and methane. The end was nigh. Oh well, this is just one more in the long line of so called tipping points.
This would actauly make a fun list, like the failed predictions list or the reasons for the pause list. This could be the Tipping Points that Didn’t Tip list.
I understand…
All Tipping Points are irreversible, but some Tipping Points are more irreversible than others.
“In the climate science world, the consequences of what are sometimes called tipping points may take decades or centuries to play out”.
Translation:
We can move the goal posts as we see fit to promote our agenda.
Pathetic.
When will the “tipping point of tipping points” happen?
When it is the most convenient.
“In the climate science world, the consequences of what are sometimes called tipping points may take decades or centuries to play out,” Kopp added. “By contrast, many people think, ‘OK, we’ve crossed a tipping point now, something is going to happen quickly.’ That’s more consistent with the way the term was popularized, before it was adopted by the climate science community, and that’s a terminological confusion we wanted to clarify.”
I really can’t be bothered to list the innumerable occasions the phrase, “tipping point” has been used by warm-mongers to describe an event in a few years time that never happens. What’s the scientific term for frantically rowing back from an untenable position? Is it “correction” or “retraction” or do we need to invent a new word?
? Is it “correction” or “retraction” or do we need to invent a new word?
__________________________
jagger/richards : who wants yesterday’s papers.
criminal minds/Shakespeare :
They have more tricks up their sleeves
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy
same as it ever was. full stop.
We do have three Major social tipping points that have already tipped, and none are concerned with Climate;
1. Social media
2. Immigration
3. The religion of peace/birth rate
The three combined will shift the current culture in one generation into a condition we can only speculate on.
My speculation leads me to thank the powers of the past 80 years for being born in the middle 30’s of the past century.
Tipping Point: An ephemeral constantly moving goal post that is always about to occur but never does.
Kind of like Evolution. Evolution : Any change that I prefer or seems to benefit me.
Tipping Point: Any potential change I’m scared of.
Another credible warning about a tipping point:
A balanced troup simultaneous beach landing on all sides will avoid that, although it may sink the island.
/sarc
He later said he was joking, but he’s an alarmist and I’d bet he was dead serious.
Brexit vote 52/48
Clinton/Trump poll 50/50
Climate is recoiling in horror as society tipping points are reached.
Some drinkers reach their tippling points sooner than others. It all depends.
Some evenings, my tipping point is sooner than other evenings. It depends on several factors.
if a drinker is not careful a tipping point may all too soon become a falling point! 🙂
Cheers!
Joe
Others even enjoy tippling pints. Of Guiness, or what-have-you.
Actually, consulting the every-useful Internet dictionary, there is nothing in the definition of tipping that requires passing a point of no return. A tipping point thus might be the angle at which a desired beverage begins pouring into your mouth, or the angle at which no more is available. Maybe this would be a tippling point?
Changing “point” to “element” makes the phrase utterly without meaning. Nothing I can think of in the climate involves “tipping,” much less being an “element.” Since they think it’s a good idea to change words, you might want to play with synonyms for tipping like: bending, dumping, leaning. spilling, tilting, toppling upsetting, canting, capsizing, careening, heeling, inclining, listing, slanting, sloping, upending, toppling, etc.
I am in fact preparing a grant proposal to study “Extreme climatic listing elements” which cause people to lean un-naturally into stiff breezes, requiring mitigating payments from the UN High Commission on Tipping Element Compensation.
I just enjoyed the tipping point on my Glencairn glass of single barrel bourbon.
I must say I have a fondness for Pinot Grigio with my sardine pasta.
Hic!
Tipping point= runaway positive* feedback.
No sign of it anywhere.
* in the engineering sense, i.e. feedback that tends to amplify the input signal;.
The Earth’s climate has been stable enough over at least the past 500 million years for life to evolve. We are here. Over that time CO2 levels were at times more than 10 times what they are today and no tipping point was ever encountered. Our climate is inherently stable. The previous interglacial period, the Eemian, was warmer than this one with more ice cap melting and higher sea levels yet CO2 levels were lower than today. No tipping point was ever encountered. The Eemian was followed by the last ice age. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate. There is plenty of scientific reasoning to the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is very close to zero. The climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which Mankind has no control.
Reading the comments I have seen a 97% consensus on “tipping points”:
B.S.
1st “study” I’ve read that was told in the 1st person
Always a crisis. Here’s a tipping point we passed a long time ago: the ability to tolerate more climate change alarmist….crap….
Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “Tipping Point, How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference”, has nothing to do with climate, but instead, how certain social trends evolve along the lines of an epidemic. When a certain “weight” of factors (often a large number of little things) accumulate, they can precipitate a big event suddenly, almost inexplicably. Of particular timeliness was his support of the James Wilson “Broken Windows” policing strategy, which involved quick responses to little problems like broken windows in vacant homes and warehouses, and rousting panhandlers and vagrants — and stopping and frisking suspected criminals — caused crime in several inner cities to plummet dramatically. It was an effective technique which had a big impact on violent crimes. In this case (Gladwell backs claims with convincing graphs and statistics) lawfulness, peace and quiet spread like a virus, just as the inverse, lawlessness, looting and violence, spread in a medium of no policing.
His book deals with issues as diverse as why Hush Puppies became a leading shoe brand (lousy shoes, by the way – I bought a pair); and yawning – why yawning is contagious. But he also points out why the phenomenon of “white flight” to the suburbs occurred with such apparent rapidity, leaving inner cities vulnerable to certain pernicious aftereffects. As Gladwell himself points out, this is the source of the term.
“The expression first came into popular use in the 1970s to describe the flight to the suburbs of whites living in the older cities of the American Northeast. When the number of incoming African Americans in a particular neighborhood reached a certain point – 20 percent, say – sociologists observed that the community would “tip”: most of the remaining whites would leave almost immediately. The Tipping Point is the moment of critical mass…”
The writer’s reference to Gladwell in the OP seems to credit Gladwell’s use of the term with some connection to climate science. To my knowledge, none of his books have an association.
It’s not a tipping point if it isn’t sudden and catastrophic. Period.
“I hear from a lot of people in the general public who wonder whether we’ve passed a tipping point with respect to the climate …”.
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I don’t believe that.
“Civil wars, which are made more frequent by temperature extremes”
NO. Civil wars are mad more frequent by GEORGES SOROS. Period. No need models to demonstrate, just the curricula.
Reddit article follows as a good start into the knowledge base: https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/4s8lsx/george_soros_predicts_riots_police_state_and/
Sorry, better reddit summary here: https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/comments/3t7x64/is_george_soros_bad/.