Tuesday, June 3, 2025

Scientists determine that major Earth systems are on the verge of total collapse







Heat records fall so often now that most people barely look up from their phones when the news flashes across the screen. Yet every fraction of a degree matters, because hidden in that extra warmth are hair-trigger switches built into Earth systems that are critical for all life on our planet. Push them too far and enormous ice sheets, ocean currents, and forests may snap into a new state – one that pulls polar bears, fishers, and farmers down a road none of them chose. Scientists call those switches “tipping points.” Cross one and the change races ahead on its own. Glaciers speed up, rainforests dry out, and deep-sea conveyors stall. The concern is no longer for some distant era. The time is now, as global temperature average already exceeded the 1.5 °C line in 2024 – the line that years of diplomacy drew in the sand has already been crossed. The World Meteorological Organization now expects the planet to spend its second full year above 1.5 °C of warming in 2025, turning a once-distant red line into an imminent test of global resolve. That prospect has moved tipping points from academic debate to kitchen-table worry, sparking renewed interest in what overshooting the Paris Agreement limit would actually mean. That grim arithmetic sits at the heart of a new study led by scientists from multiple organizations. The team linked four equations – one for each of the giants mentioned earlier – so they could watch how Earth systems lean on one another as temperatures swing.


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