COVER STORY
system to detect climate pressure points before they arrive. The 26 teams of experts assembled within the program will work on a variety of projects which include using drones to better collect data on Arctic ice, deploying wind- propelled robots to monitor the ocean atmosphere and connecting subsea sensors with satellites to develop an automated data collection system that doesn’t require human intervention. The point of many of these projects is to have as many eyes on as many things as possible, so if something starts to shift in, say, an ice sheet or an atmospheric reading, you can be ready to counter it. A quarter-century after his breakout book, Gladwell published a follow up that looked at topics like COVID-19, the opioid crisis and social engineering. His Revenge of the Tipping Point from 2024 revisits many of its predecessor’s concepts that could easily be applied to the challenges surrounding climate tipping points: “If change happened gradually, you could see that you were getting closer and closer to your goal – and you wouldn’t be surprised when you reached it,” Gladwell writes. “But if nothing happens and then everything happens, you are in the strange position of being discouraged during the long stretch when nothing is happening and stunned at the point when it all shifts.”
Illustration: twelvee_id/Shutterstock
temperature has been reached decades ago while the latter temperature might never be reached. No one doubts that protecting the ice sheet from melting is essential, but so is knowing if it is too late to do anything about it.
The UK’s Advanced Research and Innovation Agency, which funds research and development across a range of areas, is working on a £81 million program Forecasting Tipping Points, which aims to develop an early warning
Regional tipping elements – the impact of exceeding the 1.5°C target
Arctic winter sea ice: Collapse
Barents Sea ice: Abrupt loss
Boreal permafrost: Collapse
Boreal permafrost: Abrupt thaw
Boreal forest: Southern dieback
Boreal forest: Northern expansion
Sahel/West African monsoon: Greening
Greenland ice sheet: Collapse
Low latitude coral reefs: Die-off
Labrador Sea/sub- polar gyre: Collapse
Global warming thresholds
Amazon rainforest: Dieback
< 2°C 2–4°C > 4°C
Atlantic meridional overturning circulation: Collapse
Mountain glaciers: Loss
West Antarctic ice sheet: Collapse
East Antarctic ice sheet: Collapse
East Antarctic subglacial basins: Collapse
Source: Science , Vol 377, Issue 6611, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abn7950
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