The most important yet misunderstood concept in climate science - Tim Lenton

Mar 27, 2024

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There is an essential and yet poorly understood concept in climate science: tipping points.

Several climate tipping points (like ice loss in Greenland and Antarctica or the slowdown of the Atlantic circulation) are dangerously close and run the risk of triggering a "tipping cascade".

To understand these risks and know how to keep us in a safe space through positive tipping points, we are talking with Professor Tim Lenton.

Tim Lenton is Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science at the University of Exeter.

🔷 CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction

05:33 The Earth system

11:18 Vital signs of the system

15:28 Tipping points

29:00 Irreversibility

32:34 Civilizational tipping points

35:08 Early warning signals

38:31 Socio-ecological tipping points

44:19 Positive tipping points

🔷 REFERENCES

Recommended books:

• Gaia, a new look at life on earth (1979) James Lovelock

• The Ages of Gaia (1988), James Lovelock

Scientific articles:

• Lenton's tipping points article (paywall): https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03595-0

• Planetary boundaries: https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html

• Social tipping points (the "25% rule"): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29880688/

🔷 MAIN TAKEAWAYS

• Map of the tipping elements (HD): https://i.ibb.co/DbKqshq/elements.png

2 main views:

• Object (thing) perspective: seeing the system's elements as static and well defined (better spatial accuracy, worse temporal fidelity)

• Process perspective: seeing the system's elements as changing and interconnected (better temporal fidelity, worse spatial accuracy)

Types of feedback loops:

• Damping feedback (provides stability)

• Amplifying feedback (creates possible instability)

Types of cycles:

• Real cycles made of material flows

• Causal cycles made of causal chains between events

Tipping point:

• Threshold of an amplifying feedback loop beyond which change becomes self-propelling

• Happen when the damping feedbacks get weaker than the amplifying feedbacks (variability increases)

🎤 Interview: Aristide Athanassiadis

🎞️ Editing: https://codexprod.fr

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