The TiPES Podcast - Tipping points change Earth and climate

Huge climate change coming up, if we continue business as usual. The ocean current system, the AMOC, keeps Europe in a relatively mild climate. But the currents show signs of tipping to a dormant state already at mid-century. Peter Ditlevsen, the University of Copenhagen.

Ice sheets, ocean current systems, and other slowly reacting climate subsystems can be saved after having crossed their tipping points. Paul Ritchie, University of Exeter, on tipping and temperature overshoot.

Large, complex climate models previously failed to simulate the frequent, abrupt climate changes of the latest glacial period. However, there is progress in this field. Interview with Louise Sime, The British Antarctic Survey.

Louise Sime from the British Antarctic Survey explains findings that have indicated the Arctic could be technically free of sea ice most summers within a couple of decades.

Extreme and sudden warmings during the latest ice age might have been controlled by certain amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere. Guido Vettoretti from the University of Copenhagen explains this finding.

Two studies this year involving Niklas Boers of the TiPES-project have found early warning signals for tipping of a large ocean current system in the North Atlantic, called the AMOC and the Greenland ice sheet. In this TiPES-podcast Niklas Boers explains the findings.

In this TiPES-podcast, we try to reach an intuitive understanding of climate tipping - not least rate-induced tipping which is when the speed of climate change tilts the system in an irreversible manner. Our guest is Professor Peter Ashwin from the University of Exeter, UK. Peter Ashwin was one of the discoverers of rate-induced tipping in 2012.

A study in Science indicates that we should reconsider the idea of irreversible abrupt climate change, known as climate tipping. The climate system is more likely to change in smaller steps that might be reversed if we act quickly enough, the authors argue. Robbin Bastiaansen from the Unversity of Utrecht in The Netherlands explains.

It is important to understand the risk of tipping points under the current climatic situation. To help increase scientific focus on this subject, Thomas Stocker, University of Bern, Switzerland hopes the IPCC will reserve a chapter in the next assessment report to tipping points in the Earth system.

The accuracy of climate predictions depends crucially on how the ocean circulation of the North Atlantic is incorporated into climate models, a study shows. Katinka Bellomo, National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate explains the findings.