Following the publication of story in The Guardian by Damian Carrington last week, titled, “World on brink of five ‘disastrous’ climate tipping points, study finds,” numerous corporate media outlets picked up the theme and ran their own stories. Based on a single study, titled “Exceeding 1.5°C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points,” The Guardian and many other news outlets wrote stories treating the study’s speculative claims as proven, although they couldn’t agree on the number of tipping points: The Guardian said five, the BBC said six, and Grist says seven. CBS News, erring on the conservative side, says four.
Claims that the earth faces a climate tipping point beyond which disaster looms are not new, and the present claims are no more likely to be true or supported by evidence than previous such claims were. There is no data or measureable trend which provides scientifically sound evidence that the earth is hurtling towards an apocalyptic climate tipping point, or even that such tipping points exist.
Describing the study, Grist writes:
Giant ice sheets, ocean currents and permafrost regions may already have passed point of irreversible change
The climate crisis has driven the world to the brink of multiple “disastrous” tipping points, according to a major study.
It shows five dangerous tipping points may already have been passed due to the 1.1C of global heating caused by humanity to date.
These include the collapse of Greenland’s ice cap, eventually producing a huge sea level rise, the collapse of a key current in the north Atlantic, disrupting rain upon which billions of people depend for food, and an abrupt melting of carbon-rich permafrost.
At 1.5C of heating, the minimum rise now expected, four of the five tipping points move from being possible to likely, the analysis said. Also at 1.5C, an additional five tipping points become possible, including changes to vast northern forests and the loss of almost all mountain glaciers.
In case you are unfamiliar with what a climate tipping point is, the theory behind climate tipping points is described at Climate At A Glance: Tipping Point – 1.5 Degrees Celsius Warming
In point of fact, in the study cited by the media, the researchers used computer models to calculate 16 tipping points, with the final six requiring global temperature increase of at least 2°C to occur. According to the scientists’ computer model estimates, the tipping points would take effect on timescales varying from a few years to centuries.
Note the word “could” in the title of the original article, and the timeline uncertainty. In other words, the scientists made a guess. And, importantly, the guess is based on computer models that are known to be flawed, rather than real-world, measured, evidence.
We’ve been warned of climate tipping points before, so much so that they’ve racked up an impressive record of non-performance.
For example. Google search shows well over a hundred, here is just a few of them:
“Global Warming Tipping Point Close?”– ClimateArk.com, Jan. 27, 2004
“Warming Hits ‘Tipping Point’ “– The Guardian, Aug. 11, 2005
“Earth at the Tipping Point: Global Warming Heats Up”– Time, March 26, 2006
“Global Warming ‘Tipping Points’ Reached, Scientist Says”— National Geographic.com, Dec. 14, 2007
“Twenty Years Later: Tipping Points Near on Global Warming”– Huffington Post, June 23, 2008
“Global Warming: Those Tipping Points Are Closer Than You Think”—Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2009
“Must-Read Hansen and Sato Paper: We Are at a Climate Tipping Point That, Once Crossed, Enables Multi-Meter Sea Level Rise This Century”– ThinkProgress.org, Jan. 20, 2011
“Earth: Have We Reached an Environmental Tipping Point?”—BBC, June 15, 2012
“In spite of the continued released [sic] of 90 million tons of global warming pollution every day into the atmosphere, as if it’s an open sewer, we are now seeing the approach of a global political tipping point.”–Al Gore, interview with Washington Post, Aug. 21, 2013
It seems there is always a climate tipping point in our future, and they never seem to happen. Every year we are treated to a fresh set of dire predictions, with the goal posts for when they will occur, always somewhere in the future, but never certain.
In June 2011, The University of East Anglia (UEA) saw tipping points behind every rock and tree, suggesting an “early warning system” be created. You can see the list of them in the figure below. Most of them are the same ones making the rounds in the media today and cited by the new study.
But, in 2022, 11 years later, none of those catastrophes has occurred, despite no “early warning system” ever being created. Perhaps the reason is that other peer-reviewed science shows tipping points have not happened in Earth’s distant past in response to atmospheric carbon dioxide changes.
A signifcant paleoclimate study from the University of Washington says tipping points aren’t likely to ever happen from increased carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.
The press release for the study, titled “Atmospheric carbon dioxide buildup unlikely to spark abrupt climate change” says this:
There have been instances in Earth history when average temperatures have changed rapidly, as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) over a few decades, and some have speculated the same could happen again as the atmosphere becomes overloaded with carbon dioxide.
New research lends support to evidence from numerous recent studies that suggest abrupt climate change appears to be the result of alterations in ocean circulation uniquely associated with ice ages.
But even more importantly, the new study pushed by the the media in the past week based the claims of future disaster on a temperature rise of 1.5°C – the problem is, they don’t seem to realize that this has already occurred.
Below in Figure 2 is the Berkeley Earth average surface temperature record for Europe since about 1780. Europe is a good location to analyze, because some of the longest continuous temperature records are from Europe. It shows that not just 1.5°C, but 2.0°C of warming has already occurred.
Yet even with 2 degrees celsius of atmospheric warming since about 1820, the claimed catastrophic climate tipping points have not occurred.
Despite evidence to the contrary provided by real-world-data, climate alarmism over future tipping points seems to be a constant feature of the media, but they never happen – “its déjà vu all over again.”
Asserted disastrous “tipping points” may make for good headlines and story ledes, but there is no evidence any exist. Also, with the tremendous adaptability humans have shown to changing climate conditions across the course of time and widely varying environments, and the consistent progress society has displayed accompanied by revolutionary technological innovations, there is no reason for believing that humans face any catastrophic tipping points now.
Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.
One imminent tipping point that never gets mentioned is the point in time when the alarmist view of climate change will collapse.
That would the “hyperbole” tipping point.
(which was not only reached, but significantly exceeded in about oh, 2002)
The tipping point of substance:
EU stings renewable energy suppliers with €140bn windfall tax
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/14/eu-windfall-tax-energy-fossil-fuel-firms
Telegraph had a different slant
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/09/14/ftse-100-markets-live-news-energy-russia-pound-inflation/
I’m confused, the Guardian story is about a tax on oil and gas suppliers, not renewable suppliers.?
From your link.
Fossil fuel extractors will be asked by the EU to give back 33% of taxable surplus profits for the 2022 fiscal year, in a move that could pile pressure on Liz Truss to reverse her decision not to extend the UK’s windfall tax on oil and gas companies, which is set at 25%. Truss has ruled out extending the £5bn windfall tax on energy companies introduced by the former chancellor Rishi Sunak.
Yes, there is documented evidence of that tipping point having been passed in 2002….
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
That will be when the Taliband plays there, in the Hyperbowl.
Won’t collapse. Will drift over to “we were raising awareness and the need for action, which happened, and now things are better because we insisted something be done and it was, lots of it, too much to enumerate!
And you’re welcome!”
We’ve been warned of climate tipping points before, so much so that they’ve racked up an impressive record of non-performance.
For example. Google search shows well over a hundred, here is just a few of them:
________________________________________
The full list should be published in a sidebar.
And it should be “here are just a few…”
It depends on what the meaning of “is” is.
😉
The tipping point happened 12,000 years ago….
This reported study appears to run counter to current orthodoxy regarding the current 0.8C of temp rise (modern thermometer measurements (ALA Mike’s Nature Trick)) over 5 decades being unprecedented. How could 0.8c over 50 years be unprecedented if studies indicate 10c over a few decades?
That occurred to me too, one of the most common arguments, once you dispense with the claim its never been this warm, is that it has warmed faster than ever where of course it has warmed much faster in the past
We don’t know what caused the previous warming episodes.
However we know for a fact that whatever did cause them isn’t causing the modern warming because the climate models have proven that CO2 is causing it.
I only wish the above was sarcasm. I’ve been told exactly that by several alarmists.
As evidenced by
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-glaciology/article/effect-of-a-holocene-climatic-optimum-on-the-evolution-of-the-greenland-ice-sheet-during-the-last-10-kyr/1B273853FF3CE712602B3AA90A0E57DB
Something else I’ll be puzzling over for a while. Why are Boreal Forests doomed when the link is all about fires. After a fire has passed through the forest returns and won’t be bothered by fires again for 2 or 3 decades.
I’ve still not got a logical reason for retreating glaciers being a problem. Advancing glaciers, assuming no real change in precipitation, means a percentage of water retained annually. While the glacier is melting there will be increased river flows. Once gone the the precipitation will go into rivers that year, delayed by several months as in winter a lot will still be in the solid form of H2O.
Well it keeps the brain active
According to some polar scientists who have been panned here at WUWT, ice is practically a sentient being, with personifications of glaciers and ice caps, as if ice cares or could care. Oh those poor widdle glaciers. Tragic what that mean old white male patriarchy has done to them.
A lot of glaciers didn’t even exist for most of the Holocene.
Only came into existence during the LIA and the cooling period before it.
A lot of Alpine glaciers also started retreating in the 1880s long before fossil fuels became widespread.
How many tipping points?
https://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/thunderstorms/
How about 2000 thunderstorms at any given time? About 16,000,000 per year. Every one of them occurred as a result of an unstable atmosphere passing a “tipping point.” So there’s that.
The climate system self-compensates so effectively because its powerful operation will not support the accumulation of heat energy at the surface to harmful effect on the planet from what non-condensing GHGs do.
My problem with tipping points is that they are not specific to greenhouse warming or CO2. Any perturbation in the long-term earth surface temperature would trigger them, so we’d already have tipped long ago, and now be living on a Helliconia earth.
Well, I live in Hellifornia and Newsome is the leading demon
“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here with me.” – can’t recall who said this, but it should be printed on a shirt for Californians.
Shakespeare. The Tempest. The character voicing this was Ferdinand.
Looking at the warmer times passed (Roman, MWP…) where are the respective tipping points not been reset after cooling again ?
Not to mention the frozen Mammoths and Woolly Rhinos being revealed by the melting permafrost. The permafrost depth would have to have been far deeper when they died and built up around them in the intervening millennia for them to become encased
Why?
We face a catastrophic collapse of tipping points!
Worse than ever expected /s
Careful the tipping points don’t hit you on the way down. Stay far away, it is a high pile.
tight sphincters?
Bad news – This morning I slew a deer and, while examining the entrails, I saw that a terrible tipping point *may have already been reached.*
Please, you have to listen to me!
Calm down, calm down. Deer guts are no good. It’s gotta be Calibrated Chicken Entrails®. Otherwise, you get false readings.
–
Look for the little calibration sticker on the chicken’s butt so you know you are getting the genuine article. You don’t ever want to be caught with a chicken that doesn’t have a cal sticker during an ISO audit.
No,no, so last Century. You dont need entrails of any description – we now have models for that.
I understand some few of the ‘modern’ artists are using those ‘models’.
Reminds me of anatomy class lab. Eons ago. Some of the students decided to see which cadavers intestine was longest by standing along side each other and stretching them full length. Needless to say that didn’t go over well with the instructors. And no forecasts were made:))
Message me when the science is settled as I don’t want to prematurely panic in public.
Nothing worse than Public Premature Paniculation
Alarmist premature tipping point ejaculation?
I understand that the world is waiting for another hacked emails release, climate gate 03
we have passed a number of tipping points, so it’s time to EMBRACE THE HORROR
I did in 2000 when I was warned about it in 1989 but unfortunately I got side tracked by the Y2K dooming. I wasn’t a pretty sight and hence I want the message when the science is settled this time around.
Ha ha. I recall getting a memo from corporate headquarters in the lead up to Y2K instructing each office to obtain a manual typewriter (not electric mind you as power might be down). This was so offices could continue to issue invoices. Office managers reported only to be able to find them in antique shops and that even then the correct ribbons were unavailable. We never bothered and needless to say Y2K turned out to be the biggest non-event ever.
Y2K turned out to be the biggest non-event ever.
That bold sweeping statement might depend where you was brung up 😉
Adelaide’s Tidal Wave. The One That Never Happened | Adelaide Remember When
The trouble with us old analytical types is we refuse take our medication-
Climate change denial now a ‘mental condition’ (msn.com)
CO2 has never been empirically demonstrated to drive the Earth’s temperature at all, so the notion that any “tipping point” will be caused by something demonstrably incapable of inducing a temperature effect to begin with is ludicrous on its face.
And previous warmer-than-today warm climate periods weren’t called “Climate OPTIMUMS” because there was anything “bad” about them. Quite the reverse – warm climate is the BEST climate. One the biggest lies they’re selling is the ridiculous notion that ‘warmer climate = worse weather’ – that’s not just wrong, it’s 180 degrees wrong.
If enough cows are tipped on the same day, doesn’t that constitute a tipping point?
If enough cows are tipped on the same day, wouldn’t that affect the earth’s wobble?
… you get lean beef!
Pretty good!.
#groan
Lots of milk shakes?
All these tipping points will tip the young into ever gloomier climate anxiety
So, that’s 6 tipping points not 5
They are taught the world is on fire and we’re all going to die. Any wonder why there is a massive increase in suicides, drug overdoses, and violence.
This is truly sad. The younger generations have been taught to feel guilty, and to worry, about many un-true things. The man-made global warming, but in general any ecology things such as litter and wasting water. Also, the ethics of eating other animals.
My daughter, and another family member, went vegetarian for a while as young adults. They coincidentally had a range of health problems. They each, independently, decided to transition back to eating meat, and the health problems cleared up.
When passing through, I think it was, third grade, each of my sons learned about wasting water, and came home encouraging us to not waste water. Such as: turn off tap while brushing your teeth.
I asked them:
where does the water come from? From the water treatment plant. Where does that come from? From the Lake [we have surface water supply.]
Where does it go when I run the tap? To the water treatment plant.
Then where? To the creek.
Then where? To the ocean.
Then where? Evaporates to clouds.
Then where? Clouds drift over to land, and rain.
Where does rain go? To the Lake.
So, where did we waste the water?
They are simultaneously being taught the water cycle, and that water is being “wasted.”
The only water wasted, in the sense of the water cycle, is in drought. Don’t use it up frivolously. We have had drought, and the Lake got really low. Some summers are drier than others. We have had other seasons of flooding, and the water utility wishes all of us could run taps all day to drop the Lake level so it does not breach the dam and cause uncontrolled damage!
The other waste of water is when it becomes intoxified with chemicals or Nukular energy. We have to watch those.
“We” have water desalination technology, and other technology. When water scarcity becomes enough of a problem in the Levant, or California, “we” will invest in desalination plants hearty enough to support everyone.
In the meantime, I watered my lawn in this summer’s drought and had my water bill go from $70 to $120. If water is so rare, how can it be so affordable to broadcast it willy nilly all over the yard?
“There have been instances in Earth history when average temperatures have changed rapidly, as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) over a few decades”
Yes, there is evidence for two regimes in climate, delightfully warm and frigging cold. There is no paleo evidence for rapid and significant change from warm state to a much warmer state. A minor increase in a trace atmospheric gas cannot flip the climate to a hot house earth.
What is the evidence any of these climate tipping points exist? If they are real, why is there zero evidence of their existence in the geological record? (Or any record?)
CO2 has been higher in the past and the climate didn’t collapse.
You have to ‘believe’
This time it’s NOT going to work.
C,mon , man… ‘we don’t need no fricken ‘evidence’…
And then there’s this list of failed predictions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events
Careful, wiki will be erasing that list.
If they spoke the truth they would not have a cause or anyone to scare.
They’d be out of a job
Quoted sections really need to be visually differentiated from the commentary.
There’s an energy crisis and with all those tipping points in mind
“”The World Health Organization (WHO) and almost 200 other health associations have made an unprecedented call for a global fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty.””
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/14/fossil-fuel-non-proliferation-treaty-who-environmental-vandilism
Too late Guardianistas
Where’s the tipping point of sanity in their depressive predictions game?
Predicting the future, we really can’t help ourselves. From chicken bone shakers to the computer models, they all try and convince you they know what’s coming.
They don’t.
I refer you to the site:
https://extinctionclock.org
for a non exhaustive list of unfulfilled doomster proclamations.
The next prediction we’re all waiting patiently to see play out is that foretold by the Vice President for Field Conservation Programs at Defenders of Wildlife, Nina Fascione, quote:
“Frankly, it looks like we’re on a crash course towards massive species extinctions in the next 20 years […] We could lose one-fifth or 20% of our species within the next two decades. That’s a very short amount of time”.
How time fly’s, she said that back in 2003, we have until April 2023.
Brandon’s on course…
Which definition of “specie” was she using? By now, the bodies should really be piling up. Where are they?
No, a tipping point means that happens all at once.
Maybe ABC Australia fact check could answer?
What is the tipping point where adding any more wind generation causes a slowing of the Earth ?
Do Wind mills at the equator slow the Earth more than at a 45 deg latitude ?
Just more incantations over their cauldrons, this time they’ll work…
In the old days it was “We’re running out of oil !” but that was too easy to poke holes in by a wide audience.
Surely, every tipping point we reach invalidates all previous climate models. It’s simple Catastrophe Theory.
I complained to my Bank about a discrepancy in my account.
I think that $2+$2= $5.
My Bank said “NO!”.
Then I said that $2+$2=$3.
My Bank still said “NO!”.
I know people. They bought the Bank.
Now $2+$2= $5.
All is well.
(Except for those that still believe that $2+$2= $4. We’ll deal with them.)
The point of that?
The account of those that promote “CAGW, Climate Change, (etc.), have a vast trust deficit in claiming “The Science is Settled”.
If it’s “settled”, how could it have been so wrong for so long?
Maybe “Man’s CO2+Politics =/ Vote for ME!”?
What I always find strange about such lists is that when I look at actual data, I just can not see any reason for concern.
The things that concern me about the climate/weather are never listed or discussed.
The earth is overdue for a smack from a CME. The data is clear. They happen regularly (every 150 years.) Is the world ready for another Carrington Event? What about a much strong solar event?
The weakening of the Earth’s magnetic field gets little attention. I just don’t understand why. Watching the drift of the poles towards each other is fascinating. While I’m not exactly sure how fast it’s weakening, it started in the 1800s, if not earlier. Is it now weakening at 5% per decade? If it continues, the effect on weather/climate could be significant.
Any guesses (other than I am just stupid) as to why these obvious risks get little attention?
We are overdue a switch of the poles as the last one occurred 780,000 years ago. What will we do when our compasses all point the wrong way !! H-E-L-P
The only climate tipping I’ve seen is when the greenwash army abandons falsified claims up dark paths for idiots to trip over and re-discover.
But how much of the 2.0°C in Europe was UHI? I doubt that they have been any better at quality control of there weather stations than we have.
could be “their” weather stations… over ‘there’…
The tipping point these loons really need to worry about is the tipping point where normal, productive Americans (and others around the world) refuse to accept their far left ideology and rise up. It could get ugly.
If this “tipping point” nonsense was true, we would not be here today because the earth would have turned into another Venus when the dinosaurs were around. CO2 was way higher and there were no polar ice caps at all, and dinosaurs lived year-round in Antarctica (which was in the same place then as it is now). If the earth was going to go full-on Venus, it would have done so long ago….
Sorry but the climate will do whatever it will do. We can only adapt. Adapt or perish. We are just along for the ride.
The authors of the original article have done a good job compiling their and others’ lists of tipping points. However, I do not see how they draw their conclusions from the actual research data. Here is one of the worksheets from their Supplementary Information. I have edited a bit to highlight the time horizong they seem to be working with and the frequency with which the projections depend upon an IPCC scenario that has been widely discredited.
I’m interested in that graph, how come we haven’t seen that before and are we safe to use it in our discussions?
All gonna die.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/13/world-heading-into-uncharted-territory-of-destruction-says-climate-report
The wobbly moon effect is gunna tip them right over the edge-
‘Wobbly’ moon probable cause of mass tree deaths in Australia, scientists say (msn.com)
The social media giants are gunna have to protect the Gretas and griffs from this stuff. Is there anything CO2 can’t do?
Ahhhh, I see your problem.
Silly! The tipping point problem of today is different from the tipping point of 1750. That was obviously a 0.8C higher tipping point back then because we measure 1.5C from 1850, not from 1750 when the Earth was colder and had yet to go back to the normal temperature it had been for over 2,000 years, except for the odd Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age. And because of the Little Ice Age that came after the Medieval Warm Period, all the melted ice from the MWP was there as water to freeze back into ice during the LIA, making SO much more ice by 1850 when fossil fuels started the postMWP extra ice melting again, today physics and people are different. Because climate change changes everything including scary movies about Climate Change, which you should see because Climate Change is really scary!
I hope this clears things up.
I’d love to see the actual math on how mankinds affect on less than .1% (CO2 and CH4) of the atmosphere is 100% responsible for anything but hyperbole.
That’s ‘hyperbowl’ according to our illustrious female ex PM but are you sitting down relaxed and comfortable? Because after years of painful onerous study I have finally discovered a report of a natural event that has not been blamed on CO2 dooming and hereby publish that result for peer reviewing-
Huge sections of Ningaloo coast’s famed Coral Bay reef ‘dead’ after spawning event (msn.com)
Meanwhile, NOAA data shows nothing going on except…cooling.
https://www.c3headlines.com/2022/07/those-stubborn-facts-per-noaa-global-cooling-since-2014-refutes-politicians-cult-of-the-co2-control-.html
“Also, with the tremendous adaptability humans have shown to changing climate conditions over time and widely varying environments and the consistent progress society has displayed accompanied by revolutionary technological innovations, there is no reason for believing that humans face any catastrophic tipping points now.”
Yes, humans are a species with great skill at adapting. That said, at no time prior to now that I know of, have humans had world leaders and power brokers so very determined to eliminate all the human mechanisms of adapting to climate change i.e. A/C, heating, transportation et al, all powered by fossil fuels.
Unfortunately, everything possible is being done to prevent human adaptations not only to climate change but to living comfortably with our current climate.
It is incomprehensible but it is what it is, astonishing and evil as it may be. Mankind has always been evil. I guess climate change policies are just the latest iteration of that evil.
There’s no clamming up on the tipping points any longer-
Clams Tell Us Why Earth Tipped Into a Mini Ice Age Hundreds of Years Ago (msn.com)
Looks like Cap has stumbled onto a real tipping point:
https://electroverse.co/pole-shift-and-low-solar-activity-global-environmental-crisis/
Looks like this is where Cap got his article:
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/climate-change/earth-s-magnetic-field-broke-down-42-000-years-ago-and-caused-massive-sudden-climate-change-75611
It’s hard keeping up with all the tipping points and settled science-
Earth’s Sub-Freezing Regions Could Become a Paradise if Jupiter’s Orbit Shifts (msn.com)
What the super molecule CO2 can’t do eh?
There are no ketchup-effects in the climate system. The heat flow is wide open.
As if true positive feedbacks can exist everywhere in nature.
The never-ending atmospheric evolution that causes weather and climate are mathematically chaotic. Mathematical chaos theory, I believe, uses the term “phase changes” to describe the popular term “tipping points” in a chaotic system. It makes two predictions about such tipping points: 1) their TIMING cannot be predicted and 2) their SIGN cannot be predicted.
Thus, any actual scientist who talks seriously about tipping points is either an ignorant scientist or being deliberately deceptive. Most climate reporters are likely just the former of those two possibilities and can, perhaps, be forgiven. Scientists… not so much IMO.
What differentiates a “study” from a “major study”? Boy howdy, the latter sure sounds serious!
I must be missing something here, but if a number of these tipping points have already passed, why according to the UN’s own statistics has the world’s population, along with life expectancies and agricultural output, continued to grow, while poverty levels decrease? Maybe the planet and its inhabitants are a lot more resilient than the climate alarmists care to concede.