Of
Benjamin von Brackel
If you want to spread a bad mood, you only have to drop the term “tipping points”. If the world warms above certain thresholds, this could trigger a self-reinforcing process in parts of the Earth system, leading to the system in question irreversibly tipping into a completely new state – with drastic consequences. Above a certain temperature, for example, the kilometer-thick Greenland ice sheet melts so much that its highest point is lower and lower and thus reaches warmer and warmer areas, where the ice then melts even faster. If the entire Greenland ice sheet falls victim to this process, sea levels would rise by seven meters over the course of millennia.